The upset of the Patriots on Monday was a huge victory for the Bears, but it was an even bigger one for Matt Eberflus and his coaching staff.
At this point of former coach Matt Nagy’s first season in 2018, the Bears were just starting a 9-1 finishing run to 12-4 that would make Nagy look like a genius. But at no time under Nagy did the Bears look as well-coached from top to bottom as they did against the Patriots.
Even in the signature moment of that glorious 2018 season — a 15-6 victory against the Rams on ‘‘Sunday Night Football’’ — the Bears’ offense was a no-show against a defense that came in ranked 18th in yards and 19th in points and had allowed 30 points to the Lions the previous week.
Mitch Trubisky threw three interceptions and had a 33.3 passer rating. The Bears’ only touchdown came on a pass from Trubisky to tackle eligible Bradley Sowell, which was cute at the time but eventually was exposed as Confederate currency.
The Patriots aren’t the team they’ve been, but Eberflus outcoached Bill Belichick. And offensive coordinator Luke Getsy’s game plan not only accentuated the Bears’ strengths, but it threw something at the Patriots even the great Belichick said he wasn’t prepared for.
But — and there’s always a ‘‘but’’ with the Bears, isn’t there? — that was on a mini-bye. The game Sunday against the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium on a short week will be an even more defining game for Eberflus, Getsy and the rest of the coaching staff. If you need 10 days to come up with a command performance, you won’t win many games in the NFL.
‘‘Doing it all over again, that’s the real challenge,’’ running back David Montgomery said. ‘‘Every defense is different. They’ll prepare for us from what they’ve seen on film. But we’ll do things. We’ll change things, and we’ll prepare for them the best version that we can and go out and play ball.’’
We’ll see about that. The short week after a long week will be a challenge, but Eberflus already has thought about that.
‘‘We thought ahead,’’ Eberflus said. ‘‘Because time is time. You only get so much time. So we spent the better part of one day of that [mini-bye] break on first and second down versus the Cowboys. So we’ve already had a chance to look at that, we’re already ahead of that. So we feel like we’re in a good spot with that.’’
That seems contrary to the nature of football coaches, who famously only look at the next game on the schedule. And who knows whether spending one day on the Cowboys when the Bears were more focused on the Patriots will make a difference Sunday.
But just that Eberflus thinks ahead seems like a good thing. He still has to get the quarterback right, but he seems to be a more well-prepared coach than a rookie feeling his way through.
‘‘I always look at the time,’’ Eberflus said when asked about planning ahead for the Cowboys. ‘‘So where do you gain the time? In these short weeks, long weeks, you still have the same amount of time. But as long as you think ahead a little bit, put that time forward, it’s important to do that. We’ve always done that since I’ve been in pro ball.’’
Truth be told, we celebrated Nagy navigating the Bears through off-schedule games in 2018, when they beat the Cardinals on a short week, then the Vikings and Lions in a five-day span around Thanksgiving.
It never got any better than that. But if the Bears pull off another upset against the Cowboys, it will be an accomplishment that likely has more staying power.
