What Matt Eberflus Proved in Win
Coming up with a good, bad and ugly for preseason games is usually difficult.
It's all usually ugly because it's preason, with a group of players deciding games in the second half who will either be on special teams, a practice squad or working at some less glamorous form of employment next month.
Once someone wrote these extra players could all be working at Best Buy by the end of the month, but that actually proved to be true about former Bears receiver Rashied Davis. And he still courageously fought his way back into the NFL to become a key all-around performer for a Super Bowl team.
Unlike in many preseason games, determining good, bad and ugly from this Bears preseason opener was an extremely easy task, especially the ugly.
It's there we'll start.
The Ugly
Soldier Field's turf looked horrendous, although Justin Fields said it looked worse than it actually was. Matt Eberflus tried to soften criticism of the field conditions and park district workers who maintain it, or are supposed to maintain it. Patrick Mahomes even said he liked playing there because of the history, and the field wasn't the best but not terrible.
It doesn't matter what they say. The big blotches in the grass were obvious from the stands and said it all. The sand flying up every time a player made a cut said it all. They've been dumping sand in the divots on the field, as is done commonly on a golf course, and haven't had grass growing properly while they've let the field be used all offseason for soccer matches. Ideally, new sod would be in place and growing by now for a football season.
One of the great myths was the Elton John concert held there Aug. 5 was responsible for this damage. They don't allow music fans to come out in cleats and rip up the grass on a wet field. The grass has been damaged through overuse and improper maintenance.
The Chicago Fire FC hasn't played there much in recent years but this year they have held some of their home matches here since March. What's ironic is the soccer team contributed greatly to the poor field conditions, then they were the ones on Aug. 4 who moved their match scheduled for Aug. 21 to a different venue because of poor field conditions.
The concert held Aug. 5 couldn't have helped but obviously it was held after the Fire already determined the field to be unfit for play. The NFL hasn't called it unfit for play, though.
Fortunately, this was only ugly. It would have been really ugly if a player suffered an injury because of the unsafe and ugly field conditions.
Once again the city of Chicago comes up short in its support for the Bears and the NFL. The mayor has been making unveiled threats to bring another team to Chicago when and not if the Bears move to Arlington Heights. This field is a good example of the kind of support a new NFL team at Soldier Field could expect.
The Bad
The entire Bears starting offensive line qualifies here. Three first-half sacks were allowed, although the second team got blame for one of these. It wasn't just the sacks. They didn't block the run well and Fields had too much heat on four of his seven pass attempts. The throw leading to a miraculous one-handed bat down and catch by Tajae Sharpe along the sidelines was made under duress as the Chiefs blitzed Fields.
Closely associated with this pressure was Fields' bad spot in the game. It was his failed attempt to slide and avoid a hit. Soldier Field fans howled in disapproval when he took a hit from Juan Thornhill as he slid. The blow obviously didn't hit his helmet in the replay, and it did come late, but Fields waited too long to give himself up on the slide. He's going to get hurt waiting too long and needs to learn from this. It was a bad habit he had last year, too. This was a legal hit caused by his own failure to get down to the turf in time.
That being said, Fields also was right after the game when he said other quarterbacks get that call. Imagine the Bears doing it to Aaron Rodgers. There would have been eight penalty flags flying and there are only seven officials on the field.
Officials need to protect everyone equally under their rules, no matter how stupid some of those rules are.
The Good
Rather than point out isolated stats and plays by specific players, there is one greater overall good for the Bears that came out of winning the way they did with their subs rallying in the second half.
This very first preseason game is proof they made the right choice for a head coach, and that's not to slight other candidates. But Eberflus and the staff he assembled deserve much of the credit for: Defensive tackle Trevon Coley making a mess of the backup Chiefs offensive line with two sacks as well as a pass deflection; Jack Sanborn outfighting Kansas City's Jordan Franks for an interception and recovering a fumble to make possible 10 points, while also making a team-high two special teams tackles; backup quarterback Trevor Siemian capitalizing on good field position by leading two short scoring drives.
Sure, the Bears won by getting their scoring from backups to beat another team's backups. That's preseason football. Everyone must play in those games and it's a free-for-all.
Beyond that, they won by playing complementary and opportunistic football the way the coaching staff has preached since arriving. They won by applying the HITS principle and winning with hustle, intensity, by taking care of the football and with intelligence. They had only two second-half penalties and won the turnover battle plus-2. He even got a replay challenge right.
They scored 19 points in the second half against backups, but those backups are no better or no less talented than other teams' players at the back end of a 90-man roster. Players at the bottom of these expanded rosters across the NFL are extremely similar in talent level.
What this shows is that all things being equal with talent, Eberflus and his staff really can apply those principles they've talked about all offseason and win games against teams of equal talent level.
They just need GM Ryan Poles now to get them starters who are on a level playing field with the other good teams in the league so they can do more than beat backups.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
