When a team blows a 12-point lead with less than five minutes to play, the game is going to be scrutinized. When the team that blew the 12-point lead has a history of letting wins slip away, the scrutiny will intensify. So, as people have dug into the Bears’ 31-26 loss against the Lions in Week 11 people have started to question why some of the team’s best players weren’t on the field in the biggest moments. Among those, new pass rusher Montez Sweat, who only played 39 of 62 snaps on defense.
“You certainly want to see that rise,” said head coach Matt Eberflus on Wednesday. “You always want to see that rise, and it’s been rising… It’s gonna continue to rise.”
Sweat is no stranger to playing high snap counts. With the Commanders this year he averaged 47.1 snaps per game.
“Generally, I want to be there every play, but the body and the heart doesn't really work like that,” Sweat said.
Eberflus cited the team’s fast-paced and high intensity practices as a reason why it’s taken Sweat some time to prepare for a more robust workload with the Bears, but acknowledged the team needs him on the field for critical moments like third downs and two-minute drills. Eberflus said getting players like Sweat onto the field is sometimes easier said than done.
“The drives matter. Is it a 15-play drive? Is it an eight-play drive? It’s always great when we go three-and-out. That’s easy. But yeah, you just look at the drives.”
Eberflus also noted that the flow of the game was different against the Lions. Instead of a typical back and forth affair that leads to a one big defensive drive and one big offensive drive, the Bears had to run their two-minute defense twice in a row.
Chicago Bears
On one of those drives, Sweat came out to catch his breath for a few plays. But the Lions started playing a hurry-up offense, so the Bears didn’t get a chance to sub Sweat back into the game. Eberflus also isn’t in the business of telling players they need to go back on the field if they check themselves out of the game for a quick rest.
“These are pro athletes and they’ve played a lot of football, so you leave it to him,” Eberflus said. “When he’s exhausted and needs to take a play or two, you let him, then get back in there as fast as you can. When there’s a stoppage in play, get back in there. I think that’s always been best practice. Some guys stay out and they just want to stay out there and you can clearly see they’re tired and their effectiveness goes down. You want to keep your rushers fresh and that’s just the whole mode of doing that.”
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