It came as a surprise to many Chicago Bears fans when the news hit that the team was planning a second interview with Matt Eberflus. This was the first time anybody had received such a request. The fact it was for the Indianapolis Colts defensive coordinator and not one of the bigger names in the mix was confusing. It shouldn’t be though. Those who know him or have followed him for a long time could see this coming.
One of them is JJ Stakevitz. Bears fans remember him as a prominent beat writer for NBC Sports Chicago. He has since shifted to cover the Colts. Yet his ties to Eberflus don’t end there. He actually first encountered the coach way back in the late 2000s when he was a young journalist at Missouri. Eberflus was the defensive coordinator for the team and stood out regularly to Stankevitz thanks to how hard those players played.
That was the point he became a ‘Flus guy.’
That is the nickname everybody gives the coach. Having now started covering him again in Indianapolis, the appreciation has only grown. What stands out about Eberflus is his consistency. The man remains firm on sticking to the process. Never deviate. Especially when things aren’t going well. Believe in the process and things will work out. Then there is the motivational skills. For this Stankevitz had a great story to tell on the Under Center Podcast.
“The other thing with Flus. You know I realize sometimes these things can be a little bit hokey, but the Colts this year…Flus found these just the loudest shirts I’ve ever seen. And they had an eagle on them, or a hawk, and it was a ball hawk shirt. They were tie-dye. If you scored a touchdown on defense, you got a red one. If you got an interception, you got a blue one and if you got a forced fumble recovery, you got like a green one or something.
And players in meetings, they showed this a little bit on Hard Knocks, but Flus would show them a shirt, and players would just be like, ‘Caw! Caw! Caw!’ It was hilarious. It’s just those little motivational tactics sprinkled here and there that are authentic and players can buy into. He’s pretty good at that.”
Nobody can say the tactic doesn’t work. The Colts defense has finished in the top 10 for takeaways every single season that Matt Eberflus has coached it. They’ve also been top 10 in points allowed three out of the four years. So it is safe to say this guy knows what he’s doing. When listening to people talk about him as a person and his philosophies as a coach, he sounds so much like Lovie Smith. So it shouldn’t be a big surprise the Bears were interested in meeting the man in person.
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