Chicago Bears coach Matt Eberflus met with reporters Tuesday at Halas Hall to recap his team’s 12-10 victory over the Minnesota Vikings on “Monday Night Football.”

Bears players have a six-day break for the bye week before reporting back to Lake Forest on Monday. As the Bears prepare for rest and reflection during their time off, here are four things we learned from Eberflus.

1. Matt Eberflus said the Bears are ‘always wanting more chunk (plays)’ when asked how the offensive game plan unfolded.

The Bears relied mostly on the short, horizontal passing game to combat the Vikings’ heavy pressure. Quarterback Justin Fields, who completed 27 of 37 passes for 217 yards with three sacks, no touchdowns, no interceptions and two fumbles, said a big emphasis in practice from offensive coordinator Luke Getsy during the week was to get the ball out quickly to the outside as the Vikings blitzed.

“They pack the paint,” Eberflus said. “Some of their coverages are three deep and they’ve got two guys in the middle. So really the open spots on a lot of those are the perimeter. And you certainly can hit some high side pockets on those, which we did with DJ (Moore) a couple times.

“Certainly they give those things away. You’ve just got to do a real good job of spitting the ball out there and blocking well on the perimeter, which we did at times. You saw DJ get a couple nice runs there toward our bench.”

The result was a passing chart for Fields that was pretty interesting — or unsightly, depending on your opinion.

According to NFL Next Gen Stats, Fields completed 14 of 16 passes behind the line of scrimmage, not including throwaways, and his 2.7 air yards per attempt were a career low.

The Bears had eight passes go for 11 yards or more, including the biggest downfield pass, a 36-yarder to Moore in the fourth quarter to set up Cairo Santos’ winning 30-yard field goal.

Eberflus said there were opportunities to make more plays downfield.

“You’re always wanting more chunks,” Eberflus said. “Explosive plays are where it’s at. … When you’re playing a team that pressures that way and they’re vulnerable in the coverage, I believe that we should have more and we’re always looking to get that. Certainly we had some opportunities to hit some more of those and we want to take advantage of those.”

2. Eberflus thought Jaylon Johnson had an opportunity to do more with his interception return.

Johnson grabbed the first of four interceptions of Vikings quarterback Joshua Dobbs and returned it 19 yards, making a cut from the left sideline to the middle of the field.

But unsolicited, Eberflus offered that Johnson could have done more if he ran up the sideline rather than cutting inside. He said Eddie Jackson made a block and Tremaine Edmunds and Jaquan Brisker were in position to block on the “wall return” to get Johnson more yardage.

“Jaylon has just got to take that thing right up the sideline there,” Eberflus said. “You take it up the numbers so you have the ability to bend it and have more space. You’ve got (those) yards from numbers to the sideline to really create more space for yourself.”

The drive that followed was set back more when nickel back Kyler Gordon was flagged for taking off his helmet because his face mask was broken. Officials then changed the penalty to taunting without explanation. A false start and a missed Fields pass to Darnell Mooney doomed the series, and the Bears punted.

Despite the return misstep, Johnson had a good game, including a deflected pass that T.J. Edwards intercepted. But the Bears’ top cornerback also rued dropping what might have been a pick-six later in the second quarter.

“Man, I ain’t going to lie, I don’t know what is going on with my hands,” Johnson said. “I used to think I had pretty good hands, but I’ve got to figure some things out.”

3. Eberflus praised Cairo Santos’ ‘resolve’ after he made the winning field goal.

Santos’ night began poorly when he missed a 48-yard field-goal attempt wide right. But he rebounded to make field goals from 25, 39, 55 and 30 yards to account for all of the Bears scoring. His 55-yarder tied a career long, and the 30-yarder with 10 seconds left won it.

“You have to trust the work you do, the operation and the line, which I do,” Santos said of bouncing back. “We just kind of kept doing what we do. We didn’t have to change anything.

“The miss is on me, just not finishing the kick, so I was disappointed for sure. It was eating me alive for a while, but I knew I had to stay with it and just do what we do. It was awesome to get the opportunity to bounce back.”

Santos has made 23 of 25 field-goal attempts this year.

4. Fields thanked his teammates for sticking with him after 2 fourth-quarter fumbles.

The Bears posted a video Tuesday of Eberflus’ postgame victory speech, in which he gave the game ball to the entire team for finishing the game, one week after blowing a 12-point lead against the Detroit Lions.

As Eberflus was about to wrap up, Fields interjected.

“Let me say something before we end the day,” Fields said. “Those two fumbles, I just wanted to say I appreciate you all for sticking by my side and believing in me. Love all y’all boys.”

Bears players cheered.

Fields was referring to his two fourth-quarter fumbles. On the first, Eberflus said rookie running back Roschon Johnson needed to be firmer blocking the edge, and Fields needed to be more poised with his demeanor. But Eberflus said Fields at least had two hands on the ball.

On the second, Eberflus thought Fields made a good decision to run to the middle of the field but needed to put his clasp hand on the ball when he approached traffic.

Fields made up for the errors by leading the drive to set up Santos’ winner, but he still stopped to acknowledge the mistakes to his teammates. Eberflus liked the approach.

“For him to stand up there and do that in that moment, I think that’s special and it says a lot about his character and about his leadership,” Eberflus said. “It was really neat to see. And the response of the guys was also really cool to see too.”

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