Time to give credit to the Bears coaching staff.

No, really.

After a week where they took a beating over the Hail Mary pass and the decisions that led to it on both sides of the ball, they actually did what they needed to do to prepare for Arizona.

They took a day off with a walk because of the physical loss. More importantly, the theme all week focused on the difficult task at hand for the Cardinals.

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

But the Bears have 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 over there. He cannot be negotiated with. It cannot be argued. He feels no pity, no remorse, no fear. And it absolutely won’t stop. ever.” They didn’t say it, but almost.

“Budda Baker is moving there, he’s moving from the middle of the field,” coach Matt Eberflus said. “They have a three-safety look, especially in a five-down look, and he’s going to come in. He doesn’t always come in, but there’s going to be guys that come in and he’s the one who does it.

“When you see your runs, sometimes that creates a bit of confusion there. Our guys have done a good job in training, but again, it will be full speed ahead. He will be a very good player and a very good player. good face because he moves it around a little bit our guys have to do a really good job communicating.”

The same respect was given to Kyler Murray, who the Bears faced last year, and also running back James Conner.

Last year, the Bears suffered their most painful loss, blowing a 21-point lead against Denver, then came back the next week and, shaking off hangovers and embarrassment, went to Washington for a short warm-up game on Thursday night and defeated the Commanders.

Eberflus and staff have to hope something similar happens now for their first road win of the season. They badly need a win.

Here are the keys to doing so.

1. Pass Protect

Whether it’s blocking the pass rusher, passing plays after setting up the run, or moving Williams around, they need to keep their feet clean.

Williams was completely ineffective when under pressure on the road. Has a 57.11 passer rating when blitzed in road games and 45.09 when blitzed under pressure or no blitz 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 sidelined with a knee injury. Larry Borom will fill in for him, and while he has experience, he hasn’t played all year because he was on IR coming out of training camp.

Because of this, tactics like play action, setting up the run to do it, moving the pocket and using bootleg action will be huge in preventing Williams from harassing him.

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If they give Williams time, he’ll be able to see how they use Baker and burn the gambles that are going on in their scheme.

2. Danger zone

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

So the opponents hit them hard with the zone.

According to Pro Football Focus, they faced the zone 75.6 percent 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 was also applicable against Washington and the Bears still lost, but only gave up four field goals until the final desperation play. But Washington was a better offensive zone coverage than the Cardinals.

It’s more of the same defensively as they play strong pass defense and also strong red zone defense as they are #1 in the red zone.

3. Time of possession

This is not only ball control, but also eating clock as in possession. It’s big because Arizona’s offense can be explosive and the Bears want to keep them off the field.

In Arizona games, the winning team was usually the team with the largest margin of possession. When they lost three of their first four, Detroit, Buffalo and Washington all had big leads. Of course, that normally comes from running the ball effectively.

In their last game, when it was basically a back-and-forth shootout with Miami, that wasn’t the case. In the Chargers and 49ers games, the Cardinals won, but the games played out the same 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, achieving this is easier said than done. It shouldn’t be, but a trademark of Shane Waldron’s Seattle offense has been an inability to possess the football. Twice they were last in possession, last in his other season. The Bears were about half the pack on possession. Shooting for the moon, trying for big plays, should be less important than consistently moving the ball and scoring.

Waldron might even find that this approach helps them win points early in games so they don’t have to start over in a hole like they usually have.

Twitter: BearsOnSI