Why Matt Eberflus has the buy-in from Bears players.

It just struck me that Flus' HITS principle wasn't mentioned once on Hard Knocks, at least not that I recall. Surprises me for some reason. lol Flus really does seem like a great "off the field" HC and I think he's been maybe an average in-game HC to this point. Hoping he continues to grow in that second aspect to match the first.

I did not have HBO previously so I had to sign up for it to watch Hard Knocks.

I also had not seen any previous episodes of Hard Knocks in prior seasons.

I paid extra for the Ad Free version.

I would’ve paid even more for an Eberflus Free version.

I do not understand why people like him. Maybe the players like him because he’s a nice guy and there’s not a reason to dislike him.

But he is not a winner. He is not qualified to HC a roster with this level of talent. I’m also not a fan of his insistence on the Cover-2/3 given that our pass rush is suspect.

Its too late to can him now but if we don’t win 10 games this season I’d be fine canning him if an established HC hit the market.

Flus still has to prove that he won't throw away games late. Doesn't matter that he had his teams winning before he went conservative, and yes players still need to play but...coaching and play-calling in 3 games directly impacted the team, turning wins into losses.

 
Hey bud. I shared your suspicion of Flus at the beginning for sure - especially when he came out talking about HITS and sounding SO boilerplate coachy to the point where I thought it was cartoonish. And I hated how steadfast and "not angry" he was during the '22 season... until I sort of realized they were doing a "soft tank" and to me it became pretty clear Poles just needed Flus to be steadfast and just plain "not lose the team" during that necessary bottoming out.  Flus did accomplish that - there were no mutinies and Flus circled the wagons and was able to start building the culture even through that. 

Flus has really won me over because he's obviously won the players over even through some losing - including a good number of vet FAs who are harder to reach as a "culture" coach like that. IMO you don't get vet guys like Sweat proactively saying how strong and positive it is on this Bears team without them absolutely meaning it. That's the coach, and it should be hard at this point to deny that he's earned respect. He's also gotten a lot better in the public speaking/presser role.  Considerably better. 

And I especially like what he's doing with Caleb as seen on Hard Knocks.  He's coaching Caleb to understand NFL-level defensive looks.  Now granted he probably did that with JF1 too, because we know he was in the QB room.  I have no idea why it didn't seem to "take" with JF1 because my understanding is they tried.  Hard.  Caleb seems to be learning.    

The word on the street (heard from agents) is the Bears are now being viewed as a desired destination for FAs. Hearing how positive and competitive they expect to be, and seeing how guys like Sweat, TJ, Edmunds, Byard and even Mercedes Lewis are Captains after coming in as FA is super stealthy smart to attract good players who want to lead & win (vs being mercenaries).  That's Flus as well.  

On the defensive style... sure, they might describe themselves as 4-3 and Cover2 as a base defense. But in modern-day pass first football, Nickel is every team's base D at least half the time if not a lot more. They want Spidey Gordon on the field as MUCH as posssible, and Sanborn off the field as much as possible (lol).  Defenses are far more creative than they used to be, out of necessity - by disguising looks, employing hybrid/partial defenses and zones, and through creative blitzing and other tricks. I believe Eric Washington is going to be bringing more creativity and aggression to the D like Chico did when he brought Jim Johnson's aggression and blitzing into Lovie's T2. That worked out pretty well.