Chicago Bears coach Matt Eberflus is a positive guy. He speaks in solutions. He’s optimistic. It’s a fantastic trait, especially when charged with an undertaking as challenging as turning the Bears’ passing offense around.
In Week 4’s loss to the New York Giants, quarterback Justin Fields completed 11-of-22 passes for 174 yards. No touchdowns, no interceptions. It was another unimpressive stat line for the second-year passer with a century’s worth of pressure on his right arm.
Still, Eberflus found reasons to be hopeful that Fields and the passing game is showing progress.
“We got Mooney going today, which was really good to see,” Eberflus said after the game. “I think that’s a positive going forward. Cole Kmet had three receptions, so we got him going. You saw some more explosive passes in the pass game, so that’s a positive.”
Wide receiver Darnell Mooney did have his best game of the season with four catches for 94 yards, but Fields completed only 50% of his passes and looked, at times, like a run-first quarterback.
“I loved the way he was throwing the ball down the field,” Eberflus said of Fields. “That’s going to open up some more things for us.”
The Bears are a hard team to figure out right now. They had a chance to finish the first quarter of the 2022 season at 3-1 despite a passing attack that’s set football in Chicago back about 40 years. Perhaps, the lack of big plays from the passing game is the main reason the Bears didn’t win a winnable game against the Giants on Sunday, and for Chicago to have any chance at challenging for a .500 record or better, the passing game has to start producing points.
Eberflus knows it.
“It’s just about creating momentum, and it’s all about getting chunk plays,” Eberflus said. “If you can create chunk plays, that’s when you score. That’s what happens. You look at any scoring drive in the NFL this week, I’ll guarantee it had some sort of chunk play in there that scored. Very rarely can you very methodically go down the field without having some sort of explosive play.”
