With Thursday night's game against the Commanders rapidly approaching, the Bears don't have any time to dwell on Sunday's loss to the Broncos.
"Yesterday was tough, going home, thinking about it, sleeping on it," middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds said Monday, one day after the Bears let a 28-7 lead slip away in an eventual 31-28 defeat to the Denver Broncos at Soldier Field.
"But the thing about this league is the next game comes quick, and I think based off my experience, that next day, it's a step towards how you want this game to go. You can either look at it one of two ways: You can take a step back and you can feel sorry for yourself, make excuses, point the finger, whatever it may be. Or you can take a step forward and say, 'Listen, this is what we need to get better with,' understand what it is and take positive steps forward."
Edmunds has already seen evidence that the Bears have adopted the latter attitude.
"That's what the mindset is," he said, "that's what my mindset is, that's what the guys around me's mindset is, and that's what we focus on. Thursday is going to be here before we know it, so there's no need to feel sorry about ourselves. That's really the only way to deal with it is to get better, to think positive and to get ourselves ready to play on Thursday."
The Bears will conduct one walkthrough Monday, two walkthroughs Tuesday and a light practice Wednesday before traveling to Washington, D.C.
"It's a fast week for us," said coach Matt Eberflus. "It's important for us to be able to flip now over to Washington … Really the message is that we have to build off the positives that we did in this game by playing complementary football for three quarters and really doing a great job of working together–offense, defense and kicking–to be able to get that lead, and then we've got to do a great job of finishing and focusing on our execution down the stretch."
Improv time: One of the most impressive plays in Sunday's game against the Broncos was an ad-libbed 3-yard touchdown pass from Justin Fields to Cole Kmet that gave the Bears a 21-7 lead midway through the second quarter.
Fields rolled to his right, and just before he reached the sideline, flipped the ball to Kmet, who had found a hole in the Denver defense in the end zone.
"We like to run a lot of those," Kmet said. "You see me a lot block out and we're faking a run and I'll go to the flat. It works well when you're running the ball a lot. They definitely came prepared for that type of stuff on the movements and whatnot. So they were playing soft on the edges [and I] wasn't really able to get to the flat like I want to. The corner stayed wide. The end stayed wide. He wasn't really playing the run too much. So I tried to shed him.
"Justin was out trying to [scramble]. I kind of just felt the void in the zone so I stayed back. I saw him [see] me a little bit, so he just gave it time for the linebacker to fly through and then dumped it off. It was a good play by Justin to have that vision and that patience to let me find the void there."
Late pick: Trailing 31-28 with :38 remaining, on third-and-13 from the Bears' 47, Fields threw a pass over the middle to Kmet that was intercepted by safety Kareem Jackson. Kmet was just turning toward Fields when the ball was being picked off.
"Saw man [coverage], safety had depth," Fields said. "So I expected Cole to kind of go to his spot and sit down because of the safety's depth. But Cole stuck to his rules and setting over and breaking out, so all in all it's my fault. Man coverage, he's supposed to do what he did."
"I ended up talking with Justin after," Kmet said. "He thought the dude was off enough for maybe where I would sit on a spot. Instead, I decided to work out … to a spot and the that was the result you get. Both of us have got to do a better job of being in sync there. That's on both of us to get that done and make that play in that situation."
Inactive again: Eberflus revealed Monday that receiver Chase Claypool will not be at Halas Hall this week and will be inactive against the Commanders for the second straight game.
Earned it: After serving as the emergency third quarterback for the first three games, undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent was promoted to the No. 2 role Sunday.
"He's created that opportunity," Eberflus said. "Really good with the practice with what he has done so far. Again, it was his opportunity that he created because we evaluated the practice and the meetings and the walkthrough. He created that."
