Chicago Bears coach Ben Johnson didn't make excuses following Sunday's 31-7 loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
Instead, he pointed directly to the mistakes that turned an important NFC North showdown into Chicago's most disappointing performance of the season.
The Bears entered Week 5 with a 3-1 record, but five turnovers and repeated defensive breakdowns proved too much to overcome.
"Really, the things that we had done well in the three victories that we had this year, they didn't show up today," Johnson said after the game.
And, yeah, that's putting it lightly.
Chicago's offense struggled to establish any consistency, particularly with Caleb Williams still out and Kyle Monangai missing the game with turf toe.
Johnson pointed to turnovers as the biggest problem.
"We didn't take care of the football, five turnovers on offense," he said. "We didn't execute at a very high level in the run game or the passing game."
But the defense deserves its fair share of the blame, too.
The Bears entered Sunday's game having allowed just 28 combined points over their previous three weeks. Against Green Bay, however, the Bears repeatedly surrendered explosive passing plays, especially to a new-era Bears killer, Christian Watson.
"Defensively we let the ball over our head too many times. We got four passes over 40 yards or more."
(Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Those breakdowns kept Chicago from staying competitive, even when opportunities emerged to shift momentum.
Johnson, however, acknowledged that the Packers deserved credit for their performance.
"Credit to Green Bay, they came out, we knew we were going to get their best shot, and we sure did."
Still, the Bears coach believed his team had chances to respond.
"I thought we had our opportunities to get back into that game and we didn't maximize those opportunities," Johnson said.
The loss dropped Chicago to 3-2 and ended its two-game winning streak.
Now the focus shifts to correcting the mistakes before next Sunday's matchup against the Atlanta Falcons. Johnson made it clear that the Bears' response will begin with reviewing what went wrong.
"We'll go ahead and we'll look at this tape and we'll clean it up."
For a team hoping to build on last season's NFC North championship, Sunday's performance was a reminder that the margin for error remains small, especially against division rivals.
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