HC Matt Eberflus shared bold message for Bears before win over Raiders

Head coach Matt Eberflus shared a bold message with his Chicago Bears players before they dominated the Las Vegas Raiders en route to earning a 30-12 win on Sunday that improved Chicago to 2-5 on what felt like a lost season for the organization only a few weeks ago. 

"I said, 'Guys, we’re a team on the rise,'" Eberflus said during a post-victory chat with NFL insider Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated about a conversation that occurred after Week 6. "They kind of looked at me funny. I was like, 'No, we are a team on the rise. Look at the scoring. Look at the scoring offense. Twenty-seven points a game. Look at the scoring defense in the last three weeks.' ...I said, 'Look at the run offense and look at the run defense.' We’re doing a lot of good things." 

Eberflus may or may not have been in danger of losing his job when his Bears sat at 0-4 after defensive coordinator Alan Williams suddenly resigned amid strange rumors and after quarterback Justin Fields seemingly called coaches out. Chicago then exiled wide receiver Chase Claypool before the club traded him to the Miami Dolphins and more recently was without Fields on Sunday because of a thumb injury. 

The Bears now have won two of their last three games, however, and undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent completed 21-of-29 passes for 162 yards and a touchdown against the Raiders. Eberflus noted that relationship-building exercises conducted during springtime workouts helped the Bears survive what could have been a campaign-crushing stretch for any organization. 

"We’d take 30 minutes each day in the springtime and we’d say, 'Hey, who’s your hero? What’s a hardship you had? What’s a highlight for you?' Those guys could speak about anything they wanted to, all three of those topics," Eberflus explained. "I intermixed the team six times during that time talking about that. The guys loved it where they could get to know each other, at different positions. That’s really what we relied on during this time of adversity, those relationships that we built." 

The Bears next play at the 2-4 Los Angeles Chargers this coming Sunday night. As of Monday afternoon, OddsChecker listed Chicago as an eight-and-a-half-point underdog against Los Angeles.