‘It sucks:' Bears blame themselves after blowout loss to Packers
‘It sucks:' Bears blame themselves after blowout loss to Packers originally appeared on NBC Sports Chicago
The Bears have lost to the Packers in plenty of disappointing ways over the last decade, but Sunday’s Week 1 opener at Soldier Field felt different. The offense was supposed to be better with Justin Fields and Luke Getsy working together for the second year in a row. DJ Moore was supposed to add big time playmaking. Big free agent acquisitions on defense were supposed to help keep points off the board. It was supposed to be a chance for the Bears to make a statement with Big Bad Aaron Rodgers in the Big Apple.
What could’ve been a hit to start 2023 turned out to be a 38-20 flop.
“It sucks, it sucks,” said Fields. “Rivalry week, Week 1, going against the Packers, it sucks. Nobody’s in good spirits. This one hurts, I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Very disappointed,” said head coach Matt Eberflus. “Everyone in that locker room is disappointed in the outcome… This hurts. This is a division opponent. All the guys in there are sick to their stomachs, all the coaches, everybody.”
The Bears were most disappointed in themselves, because they largely felt that they beat themselves. Throughout the locker room players cited “self-inflicted wounds” as the No. 1 cause for the loss.
“I think that was the most frustrating part, getting backed up,” said Fields. “We’d start a drive and then, boom, penalty. We get a nice run, holding. It’s just penalties and self-inflicted wounds.
“It’s hard to have success, it’s hard to put yourself in a good position to convert on third downs, score in the red zone if you’re hurting yourself, if you’re 1st-and-15, 3rd-and-10.”
“We were excited, man, it was just shooting ourselves in the foot,” said Braxton Jones. “I’ll start with myself, 25 yards of penalties is just not going to get us anywhere.”
Jones committed two big holding penalties and a false start. He also appeared to have a missed assignment on a Fields sack. In all, the Bears committed seven penalties for 61 yards. They were 3-13 on third downs in large part because they were backed up so often.
Jones repeatedly took accountability for his mistakes, but also noted there’s no time for the Bears to feel sorry for themselves.
“We can’t blink an eye,” said Jones. “We’ve got Tampa. We’ve gotta go.
“We just gotta go back and keep on working. It’s not like we’re at Halas Hall di—g around. We’re trying to win games, so it’s unfortunate to go out there and just lay an egg. I don’t think Green Bay did anything special or crazy or anything that we couldn’t stop or anything like that. We’ve just gotta execute better.”
“It’s definitely a wake-up call,” said Moore. “This game was hyped up and we didn’t bring the juice and hype to the party today.”
The Bears were visibly upset, and they should be. They squandered an opportunity to start the season strong against a bitter rival, and executed poorly on offense and defense throughout the day. But they were also trying to keep the bigger picture in perspective. Last season the Bears won in Week 1, and ended up 3-14. This game was bad, but it doesn’t have to define the year.
“We also know it’s the first game and we’ve got to get better,” said Eberflus. “We have to improve.”
“We have 16 games to go in the regular season, so we have a lot of room to improve, a lot of room to grow,” Fields said. “I think that’s what we’re going to do.”
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