Bears News: Ben Johnson reacts to blowout loss to Lions: “It’s a kick in the teeth”

Ariana Pensy · Correspondent · 2 hours ago

DETROIT - This has to be one of the most painful losses in Bears history, with a final score against the Lions of 52-21. Detroit’s touchdown just before halftime was a preview of how the rest of the game would go.

It was unusual and wacky, especially with the confusion about whether the half was truly over. Chicago headed toward the locker room and then had to come back out.

“I had the official right next to me throughout that process. He told me it was halftime, so we went in for halftime,” head coach Ben Johnson said. “(Official) Land (Clark) came over to me at the end of the third quarter and he told me I believe that they ruled it out of bounds. They reviewed it and said it was inbounds and so it was a 10-second runoff. So, we’ll see what it looks like on the game tape. That certainly was not communicated to us.”

Johnson is already making history in Chicago and not in a good way. He is the second Bears’ head coach in a row to lose their first two games. However, Chicago’s previous head coach never allowed an opposing team to put up at least 50 points. In fact, Sunday’s loss to Detroit was the first time since November of 2014 that the Bears have given up at least 50 points in a game.

The 31-point differential is also tied for the thirtieth-worst loss in franchise history, which is saying a lot for a franchise that has played in 1,488 games.

“Anytime you lose a game like that, man, it’s a kick in the teeth. Nothing about that feels good. Unfortunately, I’ve been through a number of these over the course of my career. These guys, they’re hurt. It stinks,” Johnson said. “They fought the entire game and when you play a good team on the road and you have turnovers and you don’t convert on fourth down and you give up explosive plays on defense, it can go sideways in a hurry and that was really the name of the game. Offensively, we were able to move the ball a little bit in the first half and then the turnovers and the lack of fourth down conversion bit us in the rear.”

Unlike the game against Minnesota in the season opener, the defense did not stop Detroit’s run game for the entire game. In fact, they could not stop the Lions on the ground or in the air. Detroit finished the game with over 500 yards - 334 passing yards and 177 rushing yards. They had seven total touchdowns - five passing touchdowns and two rushing touchdowns.

It was arguably one of the poorest showings by a Bears’ defense in the past decade.

“Defense (allowed) more explosive plays than we wanted to going into the game. We knew that they were an explosive offense and we had a plan and we didn’t contain those playmakers very well,” Johnson said. “The quarterback for them really got after us and made us hurt. I look at his numbers and it looks like he had an outstanding day, certainly felt that way on the sideline throughout and then in the second half, you get behind by that much and it becomes a throwing game like that and really just plays into their hands. So, penalties were still an issue for us. False starts, we had a couple of those. We had some holdings. Really, really hurt us.”

Kicker Cairo Santos was just off in the season opener, prompting Chicago to add kicker Jake Moody to the practice squad. While Santos still started this game, he messed up right out the game with a kickoff out of bounds to set the Lions up at their 40-yard line to start the game. Johnson maintains there is no open competition for the starting kicker position, but also said that Moody is a “talented player.”

So, perhaps a change at kicker could come in the next few weeks in Chicago.

With the Bears sitting at 0-2 and with how they lost against Detroit, it feels like the sky is falling.

However, Johnson is not panicking and is not concerned about this team. He knows this was just one game and there is a lot of the season left.

“We’re not going to hang our heads and get down on this. It’s one game. We’re going to be just fine,” Johnson said. “We’ll take our corrections - coaching staff, players - we’re going to learn from it and we’ll be committed to having a great week of preparation coming up this week and finding our first win of the season. That’s all we care about.”