The Bears' margin for error decreases significantly Sunday night in Houston.
Teams don’t trail by 17 and win often in the NFL. The Bears have only trailed by more and won three times in their 105 years. So they need to find a way to combat the Texans on a more level playing field, even if they have never beaten a team that finished over .500 in a road game under coach Matt Eberflus.
The allowable margin for error against a playoff team like Houston does not include: a quarterback throwing for 93 yards; two players making more than one reception, the tight ends combining for two catches; running backs gaining only 44 yards; muffing kickoffs and kicking the ball back to an opponent; or giving up 115 rushing yards in the first half.
They got away with all of those flaws last week because they played against a team with a coach in his first game, who had a new coaching staff and a rebuilt roster using new offensive and defensive systems.
ROME ODUNZE CONFIDENT HE'S NOT RISKING TOO MUCH IF HE PLAYS
BEARS WHO POSE BIGGEST PROBLEM FOR THE TEXANS
BIGGEST BEARS PROBLEMS MATCHING UP WITH HOUSTON TEXANS
CHICAGO BEARS AT TEXANS TV, RADIO BETTING LINES AND TRENDS
At least Eberflus thinks they’re on the right path to making certain these issues do not reoccur.
“I thought the week was good,” Eberflus said. “The preparation for it was excellent.
"Again, I talk about finding successful ways to be successful on offense, defensive and special teams. That adjusts every single week. The matchups are different, the coverage contours are different, obviously the skillsets are different that they have on both sides of the ball, who you have to take away in terms of their pass rushers, their receivers. That changes every week."
Considering the task at hand, it better be a really good plan. The Texans were a rising team last year and could very well be there already. The Bears showed last week their aspirations might be more advanced than their capability.
Here are the three keys to a Bears win and there would seem to be no alternate route to a win this time.
1. Make the Deep Throw Possible
They have their opportunities to take deep shots and complete those throws. It would be difficult to do this worse than they did last week, when they averaged 3.8 yards per pass attempt without completing a pass play longer than 13 yards. This is on Caleb Williams recognizing the open chances faster, but beyond this they need to do what offensive coordinator Shane Waldron said.
“I think for him, just going out there and playing with clean eyes, clean feet,” Waldron said.
The eyes are on him as he needs to where the ball must go. The feet are mostly on the offensive line, making it possible for him to step forward and fire. Sometimes he gets himself into trouble in this regard, too, by moving to where the pass rush is in his face.
The reason the deep ball is especially important this week is they have the chance to attack a secondary with rookies Kamari Lassiter and Calen Bullock in it. The Colts last week against Houston had three pass plays of 50 yards or longer and managed to stay in the game that way, and mount a comeback.
The other way to make the deep throw possible is to actually commit to running the ball because it sets up play-action throw. The Bears acted like they wanted to run last week but never actually did it and they took away one real way to help keep Williams' feet clean when he throws.
2. Total Gap Integrity
The key to the one-gap defense the Bears plan is to be into their gap faster but maintain gap integrity. In other words, if one player gets good penetration, he can’t be too far from the line because he can be opening a hole behind him for the back to exploit. It needs to be a situation against the run like the Bears use in their pass rush. Their theory in the rush is four rush as one. The run defense needs to be the same way. Any small gap in their penetrating front seven can be found by Joe Mixon. He did it last week repeatedly. One of his strengths is to make the small cutback run.
He'll see the blocking flow and cut back only slightly against the grain. Some backs will make the big cutback to the backside well but don’t have the stomach for making the small cutback into the area between guards where there can be more traffic, but also could be a hole starting to open. Mixon can do all of that and do it while still moving forward so that the defense has less time to rally to the ball.
C.J. Stroud and his receivers are talented enough to beat a defense, anyway, but it's really easy for them to do it if they have the running game and Mixon working the way they did last week against the Colts.
3. Mix and Disguise Coverage
The Bears always try to disguise coverage, but in this game they’re going to need to mix in more man-to-man coverage then they would like to use or play something different than normal, like two-man coverage.
The Texans have too many dangerous targets for the Bears to cover everyone adequately on every down. If they’re standing in zone coverage and waiting, C.J. Stroud will pick them apart with long scoring drives. Getting to Stroud with a four-man rush isn't easy. They’re going to need to risk the man-to-man coverage downfield at times and believe in the pass rush they have that led the NFL in pass rush win rate last week, according to ESPN.
It’s going to take some risky and different coverages to throw off Stroud, who still is only in his second year. Stroud has thrown only five interceptions in his career, and rarely makes a bad mistake, but the way to force one is with pressure, and by keeping him off balance by both disguising and mixing up their coverages instead of sitting back in their zone on all early downs.
