3 things we heard from the Chicago Bears, including whether Matt Eberflus regrets his defensive call on 3rd-and-15

Chicago Bears coach Matt Eberflus, tight end Cole Kmet and linebacker Tremaine Edmunds met with reporters Monday to recap Sunday’s 20-17 loss to the Cleveland Browns.

Here are three things we learned.

1. Matt Eberflus said there are ‘three or four’ play calls he’d like back every game.

One of those Sunday was Joe Flacco’s third-and-15 pass to David Njoku on the Browns’ winning field-goal drive late in the fourth quarter.

“That one there, when it doesn’t work in a critical situation,” Eberflus said. “Of course you’d like to see it work in that situation, but it didn’t.”

Eberflus sent Edmunds, nickel back Kyler Gordon and safety Jaquan Brisker to blitz on the play, and 6-foot-3, 309-pound defensive tackle Justin Jones dropped in coverage. Njoku got behind Jones, caught the pass that Flacco floated to him, broke a tackle by Tyrique Stevenson and got to the Bears 19 to set up Dustin Hopkins’ winning 34-yard field goal.

“So that’s a pressure that you have a guy drop under there for the quick throw,” Eberflus said. “You’re overloading the pressure and you’re expecting that to get home. (Flacco) retreated back a little bit deeper and had a chance to float it over the top.

“Again, that was unfortunate. It’s a play that’s designed to get the ball spit out fast and tackle them and get them to fourth down.”

Edmunds said the play “hurt.”

“Anytime you are out there on the field and have a chance to close out the game, you want to close it out,” he said. “But the truth of it is the game didn’t come down to just that play.”

2. Cole Kmet said Darnell Mooney’s Hail Mary drop is ‘not the play we should be harping on — and we didn’t.’

Mooney had the winning touchdown catch in his hands in the end zone as time expired, but the ball bounced away from him and into the arms of safety D’Anthony Bell for a game-ending interception instead.

Kmet pointed to the offense’s many other issues that he said should be the focus of the game review.

“I can understand why as a fan you’d be upset because it looked like (Mooney’s catch) was there and all that, but there were plenty of opportunities throughout the game for us to make things happen and we weren’t able to do that,” Kmet said. “Sure, that’s the play that could have won it, but you can’t be depending on those plays at the end of the game to win the game.

“Three-and-outs are the things that are more glaring. If we’re able to execute a couple first downs here and there instead of three-and-outs, we win that game with how our defense is playing.”

Kmet said the Browns defense was aggressive and physical at the point of attack. He thought the Bears had opportunities but didn’t execute and got themselves into too many third-and-longs.

“You go look at the film today, the calls and plays were there,” Kmet said. “We’ve just got to execute. And we’ve got to be able to execute when it matters there, to be able to (run) off some clock, get some first downs. Even if you’re just getting the ball out to the 50 or their 40 and then punting and pinning, playing the field-position game, that’s what we’ve got to do in those scenarios.

“It comes down to execution. I didn’t necessarily feel like we were taking it off the gas pedal or anything like that.”

3. Cole Kmet and Tremaine Edmunds believe the Bears will continue to play hard.

The Bears aren’t officially eliminated from playoff contention, but their chances are incredibly slim. The New York Times’ playoff calculator gives them a 3% likelihood after dropping to 5-9.

But Kmet and Edmunds said they don’t think players will give up with three games to play. Edmunds said it’s about each player finding his “why.” And Kmet doesn’t think that should be difficult.

“There’s always a lot of stake in every game that you’re playing in, no matter what the ramifications are for the team,” Kmet said. “I can even go back to last year when we were out of it much earlier than we were this year. There’s still a lot to play for for guys in terms of putting good stuff on film, whether that’s being on this team next year or being on a different team the following year.

“You’re never going to get the short end of the stick from guys in that regard. I’m confident that guys can move on from it like we always have. But it definitely stings for sure.”

Eberflus said he might put extra time into the one-on-one conversations with players he has each week, and he will have his weekly meeting with the leadership council to manufacture a plan for the week. He thinks the relationships the players have with one another will keep things from falling apart.

“The guys are tight,” Eberflus said. “We’re just going to keep pulling together. That’s what we’ve been doing all along, and we’re going to keep doing that. It’s going to be evident in our work that we put in for this week, and it will be evident in the play we put in on Sunday.”