MINNEAPOLIS — Before Matt Eberflus tried the most daring move of his nascent head-coaching career, he gathered the Bears’ defenders Sunday.
‘‘I said, ‘Listen, we’re going for this,’ ’’ Eberflus said. ‘‘ ‘There is a chance we don’t get it. But listen: I want you to respond to this if we don’t get it.’ ’’
The Bears had scored two touchdowns in the previous 6½ minutes of game action — more than they had in the previous eight quarters — when their kickoff team ran onto the field early in the third quarter.
Cairo Santos sprinted toward the ball and kicked a dribbler to his right toward the 50-yard stencil at U.S. Bank Stadium. Linebacker Matt Adams, the Bears’ special-teams ace, dived for the ball 12 yards later, but Vikings cornerback Akayleb Evans pounced on the onside kick a split-second sooner.
Eberflus’ gambit to capitalize on a rare moment of Bears momentum didn’t work, and the Vikings won 29-22. But it showed, for the first time this season, that the first-time head coach will try to manage with cunning.
‘‘It’s exciting for us because we don’t see a doubt of concern about. ‘What if we don’t get it?’ ’’ Santos said. ‘‘We see so much of the positive of what could come out of it.’’
Eberflus has proved through five weeks that he’ll try to win at all costs — even when the game plan doesn’t advance the learning curve of young quarterback Justin Fields. The Bears were in a chase game early Sunday, trailing 21-3 halfway through the second quarter, and Eberflus tried to find ways to steal an edge.
‘‘I love it, personally,’’ Fields said. ‘‘I think he believes in us. If we do get that onside kick, it gives us momentum. It shows, if we don’t get it, he trusts in the defense.’’
The play that preceded the onside kick was a failed two-point conversion. Down 21-16, the Bears threw a dead-on-arrival screen to receiver Dante Pettis. Eberflus called the decision to forgo the extra point an analytical one predetermined by Bears research and analysis director Harrison Freid and staff based on the score and time left.
On the Bears’ drive after the failed onside kick, Eberflus went for it on fourth-and-four from the Vikings’ 37. It surprised his bench. DeAndre Houston-Carson, the upback on the punt team, ran onto the field and had to be hustled to the sideline. Fields scrambled for seven yards to convert, and the Bears eventually kicked a 43-yard field goal.
‘‘The numbers, where we were for the game in that part of the field . . . green light all the way,’’ Eberflus said.
When the Bears are just beyond field-goal range, Eberflus communicates with play-caller Luke Getsy — typically before he calls a first-down play — whether they are in four-down territory. Early in the fourth quarter, they decided they weren’t. Down by two at the Vikings’ 33, running back David Montgomery was stuffed on third-and-three. The Bears kicked a 51-yard field goal to take a short-lived lead.
During the preseason, Eberflus would smile when presented with hypotheticals about his own aggressiveness, saying he planned to trust both analytics and his gut.
He joked in August that he’d go for ‘‘every fourth down.’’ When that sort of swashbuckling didn’t surface in Weeks 1-4, it was fair to wonder whether Eberflus, who built his career on designing a defense that doesn’t take risks, had it in him.
‘‘It depends on who you’re playing, depends on the other quarterback, the situation of the game,’’ Eberflus said. ‘‘So we want to be aggressive.
‘‘I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, ‘Green light! Go!’ and [the situation] just hadn’t happened.’’
When it did Sunday, the Bears couldn’t capitalize. Eberflus, however, took away one positive: His defense made sure he didn’t pay for the failed onside kick by blocking a field goal on that Vikings possession.
‘‘Sudden change, you respond to it,’’ he said. ‘‘They all did.’’
