The Bears came into Monday night’s road game against the Patriots on a three-game losing streak and they were installed as heavy underdogs, but they wound up playing their best game of the 2022 season.
They jumped out to a 10-point lead and then scored 23 straight points to close the game after the Patriots briefly jumped into the lead. Their defense forced four turnovers and quarterback Justin Fields led a rushing attack that posted 243 yards over the course of the 33-14 victory.
It was a far cry from the way they played in their Week Six loss to the Commanders and head coach Matt Eberflus said in his postgame press conference that the mini-bye after that Thursday game was “a chance to take a breath during the bye week and really figure out what we needed to do and needed to adjust what we’re doing well.” Those adjustments worked well and Eberflus believes that Monday was a significant step for the team.
“I just think that it’s one performance, like you said, but it is important,” Eberflus said. “It is important. The whole country was watching us. And I think that’s important for confidence for the guys. And it’s not about that. It’s really about for each other. It’s about trusting the guy next to you, knowing he’s going to do his job and you’re going to do yours because why? Because you care about each other. And I think that was important what we did tonight.”
The Bears will have to show that they can play this way consistently, but the first step to doing that is doing it once and they pulled that off on Monday night.