The Chicago Bears suffered an embarrassing 38-20 loss to the Green Bay Packers, where there were plenty of miscues by the offense that doomed them early.
Buy Bears TicketsThe Bears offense committed a total of five penalties in the loss — three false starts and two holding calls — which halted some promising drives that fell short. Unfortunately, Chicago shot itself in the foot on several occasions, which led to a dismal 3-of-13 conversion rate on third down.
“We put ourselves behind on offense a bunch of times, and I think that’s why the third downs were not what they expected to be,” said head coach Matt Eberflus. “We’ve got to get that cleaned up because that’s something you can improve by being disciplined and not having those penalties. Last year we were third in the league in penalties so we can definitely clean that up. That’s correctable.”
While the final score might not indicate it, the Bears were in this game during the first half. There were some promising drives, including the opening series, but self-inflicted mistakes cost them points.
Two promising drives ended in Cairo Santos field goals, which left eight points on the board. It would’ve been the difference between trailing 10-6 and leading 14-10 at halftime.
“We had a rhythm starting off early,” said quarterback Justin Fields. “But I think the moral of the story is we shot ourselves in the foot so many times: pre-snap penalties, false starts, holdings. We put ourselves in third-and-long. It’s hard to convert on that for an NFL offense. I think if we just clean that up and keep getting better, we’ll be fine.”
Despite those early miscues, Chicago was still only down one score heading into halftime. But things soon spiraled out of control in the second half, where the Packers outscored the Bears 28-14.
