The hope and despair turned up by Ben Johnson's Bears self-scout

"The inconsistent nature with which we're playing–we're shooting ourselves in the foot quite a bit. When I look at where we were through the first four weeks, a lot of penalties, I want to say we were top five on offense (in penalties) there through four weeks so we're playing behind the sticks, and you can certainly feel that as I was calling it."

The penalties have pulled them down, but not out.

"I give the guys a lot of credit," Johnson said. "I did feel like we were pretty good at getting back on track as much as we could, but it's just not sustainable when you're playing football that way.

"That's going to be an emphasis for us here going forward. We've got to  get the pre-snap penalties under control, and they know that."

The second issue of major importance as the ground game on both sides of the ball.

"It's a very complex question, but the guys are playing hard, they're playing for each other," Johnson said. "I think we're doing a good job of getting that squared away. Good things will happen the more time we spend together.”

There are pieces working, others are not. Definitely, Williams and receivers like Rome

Odunze are the working pieces in a passing attack ranked 13th in net yards per attempt.

"I think the drop back pass game right now–which once again, that goes hand in hand with the get-back-on-track mentality–he's doing a good job there of finding guys and our guys are getting open," Johnson said. "They're being detailed with their route running.

"But like I said, the running game is struggling, the play-action game is not quite where it needs to be off of that. That's typically where you get a lot of explosives or chunk plays."

Being ranked 26th in yards per rush doesn't lend itself to play-action passing, yet the Bears have kept doing this because Johnson believes in it as a way of piling up yards after catch. 

"Our screen game leaves a lot to be desired," he said. "I don't think it's any one person right now. It's all of us coming together and getting this thing right.

"I do think that Caleb has grown each and every week. He's getting more comfortable calling the plays and the offense. I'm really excited about what the next, call it the second quarter of the season, is going to look like for him.”

The ground game is a slog on the offensive side, and a reason for panic on the defensive side where they're last in yards allowed per rush (6.1).

"It's both sides of the ball," Johnson said. "We’ve got to do a better job blocking; we’ve got to get our pad level lower on offense.

"Then defensively we have to violently shed those blockers. Our guys are going to know what that looks like. They’ve done it at times. We just haven't done it at all three levels consistently enough.”

Consistency being the key word here, as the Bears try to avoid terrible mistakes while breaking for chunk yards more often.