Hoge's 10 Bears Things: Reasons for optimism and worry

Ryan and Matt are officially George McCaskey’s football guys — again. 

And, understandably, there’s some trepidation about pairing 36-year-old general manager Ryan Poles with a first-time head coach in Matt Eberflus. 

But there are also reasons to like the hires. So are you cautiously optimistic or understandably pessimistic? 

In this edition of 10 Bears Things, we’ll go through five things I like about the hires and five things I’m still worried about. Let’s start with the good stuff:

1. Matt Eberflus has an identity for the program.

Somewhat lost in the mockery of Eberflus’ H.I.T.S. principle is that the Bears just experienced four years of a head coach constantly searching for an offensive identity. And whatever defensive identity that existed was there because of the defensive coaches on the staff. 

You can feel whatever way you want to feel about Eberflus’ H.I.T.S. principle, but there appears to be little doubt that the 2022 Chicago Bears will hustle, play with intensity, take the ball away and not commit stupid unforced errors that kill/extend drives.

That’s an identity.

“Let me just tell you, man, he eats, sleeps, drinks, bleeds (the H.I.T.S principle) in every aspect,” Indianapolis Colts head coach Frank Reich said Tuesday. “Those are the standards. And everything is going to be measured up against those things and it’s going to be very clear to the players what this H.I.T.S. principal is all about.”

Before you can get complete buy-in from the players, you must clearly explain what you’re asking them to buy into. One source with deep knowledge of the locker room dynamics last season told NBC Sports Chicago that the lack of clearly defined expectations led to a split between younger players and veterans, especially those in the final year of their contracts. The work habits of those younger players never fell off, while some of the players on their way out, well, checked out. 

To Eberflus’ credit, he seems to understand that his way of doing things won’t fly for everyone in the building.

“It’s not for everybody. Believe me, it’s not for everybody,” Eberflus said in a sit down with NBC Sports Chicago Monday. “There’s been players that every once in a while (have said), ‘Hey, this is not for me.’ OK, we can work things out. It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be difficult, but it’s going to be worth it.”

One thing that might give Bears fans more confidence is that Lovie Smith preached these same principles — he just did it without the acronym. It can work. 

2. It’s an old-school defensive scheme with new-age twists.

Yes, there are many of Smith’s Tampa-2 base principles in Eberflus’ defense, but he has adapted to today’s NFL. He realizes he doesn’t have Brian Urlacher in the middle of the field to defend every inch between the numbers. 

“We are all about upfield pressure defense, creating negative plays for the offense, and then getting takeaways,” Eberflus said. “We’re going to be a zone match (defense) and we’ll play some man. We’ve done that before. But it’s going to be all about the takeaways and being physical.”

One of the criticisms of Eberflus’ scheme in Indianapolis was that it was soft. The Colts would often give up many short completions that led to long drives. But that “bend-but-don’t-break” method tends to work in the big picture. Eventually the defense will take the ball away or at least create a drive-stalling negative play. 

A good example of this — with zone-match coverage too — is the Isaiah Rodgers interception on Tom Brady from this past season. There was pre-snap communication between the slot corner and the outside corner and they both picked up their receivers in man-coverage while the rest of the defense played zone. 

3. Ryan Poles’ offensive line emphasis will be “the foundation.”

It was barely mentioned in the press conference, but Poles later discussed his offensive line background and the impact it will have on the roster:

“It’s always going to be a point of emphasis. And I think you all know, your starting five rarely ends up being the five at the end of the season, so not only do you need really good starters, but you need depth as well. And I’ve always felt that is the foundation — that establishing a run game and having protection allows you to dictate the game.”

Poles even offered up specific traits he looks for in offensive linemen:

“Especially the big guys up front, lean body mass is a huge indicator for us. So I’m not too worried about the scale. I’m worried about how much muscle mass they have on. So that’s part of that process — getting big, strong, dense human beings up there.”

4. Poles preaches honesty and accountability in the scouting process.

If accountability was lacking during the last regime, you can understand why that might change under Poles. In Kansas City, Poles said he learned a very specific way of conducting scouting meetings that helped find the “truth” about a player.

“Don’t read your report word-for-word. Just talk football and watch the tape. And we watched and watched and watched and watched,” Poles said. “So you can say (the player) has great hands, but when we watch him and he’s dropping every ball, you’re going to get called out for that in a respectful way. We’re not going to put that guy where we thought he was because he can’t catch.

“You can find truth that way by watching a lot of tape and getting a lot of input. You have to structure the meetings the right way and set the rules.”

5. Justin Fields is still the quarterback.

While Poles and Eberflus were both reluctant to discuss individual players on the roster Monday, it was telling that Fields was made available to the media as the players’ representative. Shortly after Eberflus was hired, he reached out to Fields and they met for over an hour at Halas Hall. 

Getting the buy-in from Fields is Step No. 1, because the young quarterback has already established a clear leadership role in that locker room.

Also, while there were some understandable concerns about not hiring an offensive-minded head coach, there are some advantages to having a defensive-minded head coach paired with a young quarterback. You can read more about that here. 

That being said, let’s get to some of the concerns…

6. The offense is still the biggest problem on the team.

That wasn’t going to change overnight no matter who the Bears hired, but they sure are taking a leap of faith by rolling with a defensive-minded head coach and a first-time NFL play caller.  There’s a lot to like about Luke Getsy as the offensive coordinator, but can he get this team to score more than 18.3 points per game?

Let’s not lose sight of that. The Bears simply need to score more touchdowns. In many ways, Getsy is almost as important of a hire as Eberflus. 

7. Key defensive additions need to be made.

You can talk yourself into the idea that a switch back to a 4-3 base defense isn’t a big deal because of the amount of nickel played in the NFL these days. There’s some validity to that, but the reality is that the three most important positions in Eberflus’ scheme are the three-technique, the slot corner and the Will linebacker. 

Roquan Smith would seem to be an ideal candidate at the Will so the Bears should be more than OK there, but who’s the three-technique? Bilal Nichols could potentially play there, but is he an All-Pro type player? There’s a reason why the Colts traded for DeForest Buckner.

As for the slot corner position? That cupboard is bare. Poles is going to have to work some magic there.

8. Who’s coaching special teams?

While the Bears went through their struggles the last few seasons, the special teams unit was quietly improving under coordinator Chris Tabor. He had an All-Pro returner in all four seasons he was with the Bears. Former Raiders interim head coach Rich Bisaccia is rumored to be in the mix to replace Tabor, who left for the Carolina Panthers.

Whoever Eberflus hires there, the Bears can’t afford to have that phase drop off.

9. Lack of draft capital.

Ryan Poles took a job that included Justin Fields. He also took a job that lacked a first round draft pick this spring. 

Poles hinted in his press conference that he could find a way to add more draft capital, but doing so would come at the expense of what's currently on the roster. 

Still, every GM re-makes the roster the way they envision. That means there is bound to be significant change and some surprising moves. Stay tuned, because Poles has a lot of work to do to make the Bears competitive in 2022.

10. The Jim Harbaugh thing.

It’s still lingering. It still doesn’t look good — especially if Harbaugh lands in Minnesota.

You’d feel better about it if the Bears showed significant interest, but if Harbaugh takes the Vikings job, this is a topic that is bound to be revisited at least twice a year until, well, Harbaugh leaves for another job. 

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