The Bears ended their home slate Sunday night the same way they started it—by mustering just three points in a deflating prime-time loss.
It certainly wasn't what anyone envisioned for a team that had stormed to a 12-4 record and the NFC North championship in 2018.
The Bears entered the 2019 season with Super Bowl aspirations, fueled by a dominant defense and an offense that was expected to take a major step after showing promise last year in Matt Nagy's first season as coach.
But the unit was held to a single field goal in a 10-3 season-opening loss to the Packers Sept. 5 and duplicated that feat Sunday night in a humbling 26-3 defeat to the Chiefs that dropped the Bears' record to 7-8.
"I just feel like we let each other down, we let the fans down," said quarterback Mitchell Trubisky. "That's not how we want to finish our last home game at Soldier Field. We just left a lot of plays out there and a lot of uncharacteristic things that you're embarrassed of.
"We've just got to watch the film, come back better and learn from it, and dig deeper. We've just got to want more for ourselves and more for each other."
The Bears at least had a chance to tie the game in their Week 1 loss to Green Bay before Trubisky threw a late interception in the end zone. Sunday night's contest wasn't as close. The Chiefs scored two touchdowns and one field goal on three first-half possessions to take a commanding 17-0 lead.
"It's disappointing," Trubisky said. "I mean, scoring three points, you're not going to win any games doing that. We've got to be able to put points on the board. We've got the guys to do it, and we've just got to find the reasons why that's not happening right now.
"All I know how to do is go back to work, continue to believe in the process, believe in the guys next to you, and you can't accept the fact that we're scoring three points in our first game and our last game. It's embarrassing, like the guys said. We've got to be better."
The Bears' best chance to score a touchdown came on their only red-zone possession of the game. But they turned the ball over on downs after Cordarrelle Patterson's 16-yard run resulted in first-and-goal at the 5.
After David Montgomery was stopped for no gain, Trubisky threw an incomplete pass, ran for one yard and then had his pass intended for Allen Robinson in the end zone broken up by cornerback Charvarius Ward.
"When you get down there, great teams score touchdowns," Nagy said. "Forget field goals. No one wants field goals. We want touchdowns. We haven't been doing that this year. So, we look at the scheme, we look at the execution and we look at the people who are doing it."
Trubisky completed 18 of 34 passes for 157 yards and a 65.4 passer rating.
A Bears offense that scored nine touchdowns during a three-game winning streak over the Giants, Lions and Cowboys has been limited to one TD in back-to-back losses to the Packers and Chiefs.
"That's obviously an area that I know, that we know that we've got to be a lot better," Nagy said. "I can just say that I will be doing everything in my area to do whatever we can to get this offense better."
The Bears defense did little to stop the Chiefs, who scored on five of seven possessions—not counting a kneel-down on the final play of the game.
Quarterback Patrick Mahomes completed 23 of 33 passes for 251 yards with two touchdowns and a 112.1 passer rating while being sacked only once. He rushed for a 12-yard TD and threw touchdown passes of 6 yards to tight end Travis Kelce and 14 yards to running back Damien Williams.
The Bears failed to record a takeaway for the third straight game and have forced only 16 turnovers in 15 games this season after leading the NFL with 36 last year.
"Offensively we struggled, and then defensively they had a couple drives there with a lot of plays," Nagy said. "We couldn't get off the field on third down. It just wasn't our day today.
"We know we're better than what we showed today in every phase across the board. That's the part that's frustrating."
