What was Matt Eberflus’ message to the Bears for the bye week?

LAKE FOREST – It’s been a long 13 weeks for the Bears and they’re ready for a break.

The team will finally have their bye this weekend as they get a chance to heal up before finishing a rebuilding season under first year general manager Ryan Poles and head coach Matt Eberflus.

At the moment, things are a little rough, to say the least, as the Bears come into the break having lost six consecutive games while dealing with a host of injuries. On top of that, the team will have to face three of the four best teams in the NFL to finish the 2022 season – Eagles (Dec. 18), Bills (Dec 24), and Vikings (Jan. 8).

Some might see it being a little difficult for the team to get fired up to finish what has been a long season, so what does Eberflus say to the team as they take an extended break?

He shared that with reporters at his news conference following the Bears’ loss to the Packers on Sunday, ahead of the team’s first full week off of the season.

“It’s the message that’s going to be if we win, lose or draw. Every single week I’m going to tell
them the same thing. Just like I want to say to you right now. Get back to work tomorrow,” said Eberflus. “I know we got the bye week. Coaches are going to get to you three things you can get better at.

“You’re going to look at that during the course of the bye week and come back and get better, and we’ll have our eyes forward moving to Philadelphia.”

Balancing rest along with mental work is a key part of the strategy for Eberflus for the players during the bye week as they’ll return to finish out the 2022 season.

“Two or three things to get better at. Obviously decompress a little bit, get with family, take some time off,” said Eberflus on what he wants the players to do with the weekend off. “But then spend some time, take a couple of days here and start thinking about what you’re going to get better at and then watching some tape.

“We want you to watch some tape. Coaches will send the cut-ups to them to make sure they’re watching the right things and ‘Hey, this is what we’re talking about,’ and how we’re going to get better as a partnership.

“That’s the biggest thing we always do in the bye week. We have to improve our schemes. We’re gonna look and see what we’ve done the last several games and what we’re going to do the last four games.”

But for now, they get to enjoy the bye. After all, they waited quite a while to finally get it.