Bears Get Their Grades and Loafs

First regular-season marks given out by coaches after film review in the HITS system and even players who had outstanding games were sometimes loafers.

A day after the Bears knocked off the San Francisco 49ers, players sat down for their first real grades in the HITS principle from the coaches' film review.

Would they get loafs," on their report card? It's the dreaded mark of the HITS system when coaches see on film review how a player does or doen't move in a way to display hustle, intensity, to get the ball or or play with intelligence (smarts).

Some did get loafs, admitted coach Matt Eberflus. In fact, it's a rather common occurence.

"Yes, those are all issued today. Yep," he said. "If you were in 55 plays and you had 20 loafs, that's not a good outing.

"There's a couple guys that had that. But we gotta do a better job with that."

A total of 20 loafs sounds like a lot, but loafs are in the eye of the beholder.

"We also reward guys," Eberflus said. "You're in the 90 percent club. So if you're in 10 plays and you only loaf one time, you're in the 90 percent club. That's a hard club to be in too, for the whole season.

"We'll give that award out at the very end if you're in that club. That means you played hard the entire season. That's always hard to get into."

Of course, Eberflus said he doesn't want to reveal who had good marks like those or who had loafs.

Roquan Smith led the Bears in tackles with nine and had a pass deflection to go with half a sack, but even he had loafs.

"I'm sure I did. I did, yeah. Of course I did," he said. "I'm sure you (media) guys ... well, I can't speak for everyone, but I know I did, yeah."

It wasn't a shock to his system.

"I've been a part of that process before, did it throughout college, did some in the league before," Smith said. "So it's nothing new for me."

But it is new doing it with HITS principle applied.

"Yeah, loafs is crazy," Smith said. "Definitely tough grades on the loaf, but hey it's ball. It's how they view it. How they see things. You just have to respect it and just like bust your tail and try to prevent those."

There is no loafs appeal process, apparently.

"Naw I'm not into the appeal business," Smith said. "They write it on the paper. It's over with. Hey, I see the loaf. Just makes me want to go a little harder."

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