Going into halftime, things looked bleak for the Chicago Bears. They’d fallen behind 17-0 in the waning minutes of the second quarter. Only a timely 67-yard kick return allowed them to put up a field goal to make it 17-3. The Tennessee Titans were doing pretty much whatever they wanted on offense. Head coach Matt Eberflus knew he had to do something. The first thing was slowing down the Titans’ ground attack, which had gouged the Bears for 112 yards to that point. How?
He noted that most of Tennessee’s big runs had come from bouncing the ball to the outside, where Tony Pollard’s speed was more dangerous. So, the goal for Eberflus was to take those away. To do this, he made an adjustment on the Bears’ defensive line. He had the defensive ends move out to what is called a Wide-9 formation, where the defensive ends play on the outside shoulders of the offensive tackles. This should allow them to bottle up the outside runs, forcing Titan backs to turn inside.
It worked to perfection.
Once it became clear their running backs couldn’t bounce outside, things went south fast. None of their inside runs went anywhere. This forced the Titans to lean more on Will Levis throwing the ball, which, in turn, allowed the Bears to rush him. That led to sacks and, more importantly, turnovers. A strip-sack and a pick-six led to 10 crucial points that helped Chicago go from a 17-3 deficit to a 24-17 lead. Tennessee ran for only 28 yards in the second half. They never found an answer to the Bears’ alignment shift.
For all the talk about how Matt Eberflus is nothing more than a motivator as a head coach, people still don’t understand how good he is at coordinating. There is a reason he had so much success with the Indianapolis Colts defense. There is a reason the Bears defense experienced a miraculous turnaround last season after a dismal start. Eberflus knows what he’s doing. The defense is in great hands with him. If Caleb Williams is the real deal, this team will be good.
