It’s time to give credit to the Bears coaching staff.

No, really.

After a week in which they took a beating for the Hail Mary pass and the decisions that led to it on both sides of the ball, they actually did the right thing to prepare for Arizona.

They took a day off to tour because of the physical toll the loss took. More importantly, the theme of the entire week centered on the difficult task at hand with the Cardinals.

It’s easy to ignore an opponent that has struggled to win in recent years, especially after your own horrible loss, which can hang heavily over the team like a fog.

But the Bears talked about the Cardinals all week as a team on the verge of taking over the NFC West, which they very well could do.

The offense treated safety Budda Baker like he was the Terminator. You waited for one of them to say, “Baker is out there. You can’t negotiate with him. You can’t reason with him. He has no pity, no remorse, no fear. And he absolutely won’t stop.” ever.” They didn’t say it, but close.

“Budda Baker moves around, comes in from the middle of the field,” coach Matt Eberflus said. “They have a three-deep look primarily on a five-down look and he’ll be going in. He’s not always going in, but there will be guys that will come in, and he’s primarily the guy that does that.

“When you’re spotting your runs, sometimes that creates a little bit of confusion. Our guys have done a good job in practice, but again, it’s going to be full speed. He’s going to be a really good player and a really good player.” Good front because they move it a little. “Our guys have to do a really good job communicating.”

The same respect has been shown to Kyler Murray, who the Bears faced last year, and running back James Conner as well.

Last year, the Bears suffered their most agonizing loss, blowing a 21-point lead against Denver, then turned around the following week and shaking off the hangover and embarrassment, traveled to Washington for a brief warmup for a Thursday game at night and defeated the Commanders.

Eberflus and his staff have to hope something similar happens now to get their first road win of the season. They desperately need victory.

Here you have the keys to do it.

1. Pass protection

Whether it’s through standard pass blocking, play-action passing after establishing the run, or moving Williams, they have to keep their quarterback’s feet clean.

Williams has been completely ineffective under pressure on the road. He has a passer rating of 57.11 when loaded in road games and 45.09 when pressured or not pressured on the road.

The problem with all of this is that the Bears offensive line will have a new left tackle as Braxton Jones has been ruled out with a knee injury. Larry Borom will replace him and although he has experience, he hasn’t played all year because he was on IR coming out of camp.

For this reason, tactics like play-action, setting up the run to do this, moving the pocket, and using pirate actions will be huge in preventing Williams from being harassed.

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If they give Williams time, he will be able to see how they are using Baker and see if the play is done within their plan.

2. Danger zone

The Cardinals are a nightmare for defenses in man-to-man pass coverage because of Kyler Murray’s shifting ability and also because their receivers are more effective against man coverage.

Then the opponents hit them hard with zone.

According to Pro Football Focus, they have faced the zone 75.6% of the time.

The Bears’ defensive scheme is zone and they are in the top 10 in defensive success rate (50.2) and yards allowed per target (7.4) according to PFF.

The zone situation also applied against Washington and the Bears still lost, but allowed only four field goals until the final desperation play. But Washington covered the frontcourt better than the Cardinals.

It’s more of the same defensively as they play strong zone pass defense and also strong red zone defense as they are number one in the red zone.

3. Moment of possession

It’s not just about controlling the ball, but about eating up the clock as at the moment of possession. It’s important because Arizona’s offense can be explosive and the Bears want to keep them off the field.

In Arizona games, the winning team has generally been the team with the greatest possession advantage. When they lost three of their first four, Detroit, Buffalo and Washington had big leads. Of course, that usually comes from running the ball effectively.

In their last game, when it was basically a back-and-forth shootout against Miami in the end, this was not the case. In the Chargers and 49ers games, the Cardinals had wins, but the games were going in the same direction as the previous ones in terms of ball control. Then, key turnovers cost the Chargers and 49ers and made their ball control efforts almost a detriment.

For the Bears, accomplishing this is easier said than done. It shouldn’t be this way, but a characteristic of Shane Waldron’s offense in Seattle was an inability to possess the ball. Twice they were last in time of possession, second to last in their other season. The Bears have been in the middle of the pack in time of possession. Shooting for the moon, trying for big plays, should be less important than consistently advancing the ball and scoring.

Waldron might even find that approach helps them score points early in games so they don’t have to start in a hole again like they normally have.

Twitter: BearsOnSI