Digging Deep for Bears Solutions
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Bears coach Matt Eberflus plans to tap into everything he can to get the team headed toward victories, whether it's from adding talent or an innovative scheme, or new talent to surround Justin Fields.
He's even planning to use the franchise's rich tradition when the team reports for conditioning work early in April. He's already been working at this.
Speaking on the Peter King Podcast, Eberflus said he has already spoken either by text or by phone with 30-35 alumni and he might even have some of them come to talk to the team.
"That was pretty special," Eberflus told King. "You look at your phone, you've got (Mike) Ditka, (Dick) Butkus."
Eberflus said Butkus texted him back.
"Then you have Julius Peppers, (Brian) Urlacher, (Lance) Briggs, you know, it's truly amazing. Tillman, Peanut Tillman, hopefully he's coming in for a spring practice to talk to the team."
King wanted to know if Tillman might be persuaded to give a lesson in how to deliver the Peanut Punch.
"Oh, he's going to," Eberflus said, laughing.
Eberflus realizes it's going to take bringing in new talent for the offense to work but believes the leader is in place with Justin Fields. He's felt this way since he had a 45-minute talk in his office with Fields right after his hiring.
"I feel very confident in his confidnece and his ability to lead the football team," Eberflus told King. "People will say this and I know this to be true with these NFL (QBs), is that I've seen the biggest growth between rookie year and second year.
"You look at all the quarterbacks that have come up lately, that first or second year it's been a big growth spurt for those guys and we're expecting that this year."
PETER KING TALKS TO MATT EBERFLUS
Eberflus realizes Fields can't do it alone.
"So what I mean by that is we have to have an offensive line, OK, that can protect," Eberflus said. "We have to have an offensive line that can block the running game an appropriate way and then we have to have runners, you know, different pace runners. You know, we have a good runner now but we're going to add some other pieces in there potentially."
It sounds as if the plan is still to bring in someone to complement David Montgomery and Khalil Herbert. They did add waiver-wire pickup Darrynton Evans, although it's entirely possible there could be more competition.
Eberflus did his interview prior to the signing of Evans, which means neither Byron Pringle nor Equanimeous St. Brown had signed yet, either. Neither signing moved the bar much because they aren't considered locks to start.
"Having pieces around (Fields) in the receiver corp., you've got to have a No. 1 (receiver), you've got to have a No. 2, you've got to have a No. 3," Eberflus told King. "You've got to have a tight end that can block the point, you've got to have a U-tight end that can move and flex out and create mismatches."
It sounds from his talk with King that Eberflus realizes they won't be able to address everything and some of the answers need to come in 2023 when there will be a massive amount of salary cap space. In lieu of talent, the scheme will need to provide the danger for defenses with a "flex-and-move" approach designed to adjust to their talent.
"So if we acquire the players that we want to acquire this year, or we don't and maybe we only get a coupe of pieces because you only can acquire so many pieces in one year, then your offense has to be able to mold and move and adjust to what we have," Eberflus told King. "That's what's great about our scheme."
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