Lucas Patrick returning as Bears’ captain, Velus Jones Jr. injury update, roster moves

Once evaluation of a game begins, Eberflus leaves the score and the outcome behind. The priority becomes helping each player find the good and bad in their performance so they can learn from it.

Part of the process is the coaching staff issuing player grades and loafs on Mondays. Analyzing the effort and intensity each player gave in the game isn’t meant as a criticism. Eberflus explained that the loaf system is designed to be a partnership between a player and coach to create individual improvement and, as a result, help the team win each down.

Now the Bears will turn their attention to bringing that hustle and intensity back to the practice field in preparation for Week 2 in Green Bay.

“In order to play hard, you gotta live hard and that means that our practice has gotta be intense, it’s gotta be physical … the guys themselves have to push themselves so we keep things sharp and we get better,” Eberflus said before Wednesday’s practice. “The individual periods are going to have to be on point with the coaches, and that’s a big, big day for us and we have to get better today. So, that’s really the focus we will have today.”

Pressure up front: The Bears defense blitzed just once against the 49ers but put plenty of pressure on quarterback Trey Lance.

Bears defensive linemen combined for eight of nine quarterback pressures — with linebacker Roquan Smith accounting for the other one – and recorded five quarterback hurries.

“That to me, it’s really good because you have now seven guys in coverage and you’re able to fill windows and that’s really good against a good quarterback,” Eberflus said. “If you’re playing a guy whose got a little bit more inexperience, you can get away with sending five or more after him and open up those windows and that will affect him because he’ll look down at the rush a lot of time. But when you have a guy with experience, you really want to be able to do that most of the time, have seven guys in coverage, rush with four, and that’s how we operate most of the time anyway.”