How the Bears explained losing 17-6 lead in one quarter of football

The penalties stacked up to 127 yards and had a negative effect all night,  whether it was false starts on Darnell Wright or Jonah Jackson, or pass interference against Nahshon Wright and Tyrique Stevenson at critical junctures in the game.

"The offense was stalling out," Johnson said. "Some good, some bad. I thought Caleb played well to start the game for the most part, finding completions and getting us moving."

Th Bears had their first touchdown on an opening drive since the 2023 finale but then went 10 possessions with one field goal and one missed 50-yard field goal to show for it, as well as six punts.

They went 3-of-12 on third down, 0-for-1 on Johnson's one fourth-down  gamble and their penalties were a source of frustration all night.

"It felt like we were behind the sticks most of the time," Johnson said. "Second and long, third and long is where we lived, which was a struggle for us offensively."

Caleb Williams connected on his first 10 passes, but the first incompletion was Johnson's failed fourth-and-3 gamble at the Vikings 24-yard line when he threw over the middle off the mark to DJ Moore. Later, he duplicated the incomplete effort on that same play but to Cole Kmet.

"We felt like we were dominating the game," Williams said. "We were in control, up to two scores coming out of half. That mentality is something that we have, something that we preach and that didn't happen today.

“It's not a play-call thing, it's not anything like that. It's just being able go out there and execute the plays that are called and be able to execute them at a high level. That's something that we take pride in and today that didn't happen."

Williams finished by completing11 of his last 25 and seemed to do as much with his legs as with his arm. He led the Bears in rushing with six runs for 58 yards, and that's definitely not how Johnson draws it up.

Johnson applauded the defense's effort keeping it together despite missing players, except for the pass interference penalties.

"Statistically I think the defense did a really good job up until the very end," he said. "That fourth quarter things got away from us a little bit but up until then they kept us in the ballgame."

Considering they were without three injured defensive starters and backup slot  cornerback Josh Blackwell didn't play due to injury, it was a case where the defense held up until collapsing under the pressure of their own offense as much as anything.

Even special teams let them down. Santos missed the big 50-yard field goal starting the fourth quarter and Minnesota started its rally after that.

Then, late in the game after falling behind, Johnson wanted Santos to kick off out of the end zone to keep any time from running off the clock. It would have let the Bears use the two-minute warning with their own two timeouts to get the ball back if they could force a punt.

They forced the punt, but Santos didn't kick off out of the end zone and Minnesota was able to force the two-minute warning before starting its possession. It all combined to leave the Bears with only nine seconds left to try to get to field goal range from their own 20 and no timeouts.

"The intent was for the ball to go out of the end zone," Johnson said, not at all  sounding happy about what transpired.

"We felt like if we'd have kicked it out of the end zone and got the three-and-out that we got, we'd get the ball back with around 56 seconds."

So there was no real last-minute march to get into field goal range without a timeout, just a silly hook-and-ladder pass with laterals that gained about 20 yards as the game ended.

The finish wasted one of the more dramatic Bears defensive plays in recent memory, a 74-yard pick-6 to push their lead to 17-6 in the third quarter. The defense couldn't stop J.J. McCarthy in the end from driving the Vikings to three fourth-quarter touchdowns after bottling the Minnesota offense up for three quarters.

"I think we came out with great energy, I think we made a lot of great plays but at the end of the day we didn't finish," safety Kevin Byard said. "We didn't make the plays when we needed to make them. We got a two-score lead. We need be able to keep that lead.

"Regardless of what the offense does we had the lead and we've got to finish there."

They were all talking about finishing better when it was over. It's what happens when your team is supposed to be so committed to details, and then lets a lot of details go unchecked.