CHICAGO – The Bears had just dominated the Carolina Panthers in their most complete game of the early season, yet the post-game locker room was no raging kegger. It was in fact quite the opposite.

Slow jams were playing on the loudspeaker. The mood was positive and players were joking around some, but Sunday’s 36-10 victory wasn’t cause for major celebration.

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Safety Kevin Byard III perfectly stated the reason why.

“That’s what it’s supposed to look like,” the sage veteran safety said. “That’s the standard we play with. That’s how we want to play every single game.”

Such a performance has been the expectation going into every game thus far, with practice evidence and depth of talent providing belief that really, really good was possible. The offense just hadn’t shown it.

Until Sunday. Caleb Williams was on fire. DJ Moore was hauling in deep shots. The line protected well and D’Andre Swift was able to gain chunk yards while working in space.

The Bears totaled 424 yards offense. The defense gave up just 10 points and took the ball away three times. The offense cashed in on each of those opportunities.

That’s good complementary football. That’s how you draw it up.

“It’s early in the season and we’re still in the process of trying to get better,” Byard said. “This was a great example of what the Chicago Bears should look like. That’s the standard going forward, and it’s the floor.”

Head coach Matt Eberflus was all business in his postgame speech to the team, stating that even a dominant win like that will include mistakes on the game tape be considered something to build off of and “improve with a neutral eye.”

Eyes of any kind will tell you the Panthers are bad. Like, really bad, especially on a defense beset by injuries. If the score was both low and close, pessimism might’ve come out of a victory. But the Bears did exactly what they were supposed to do against a bad defense – rack up yards and points.

Ask Bears players about how the quality of opposition factors into analyzing this performance and they’ll offer a quick reply.

It doesn’t.

[WATCH: Coach Wannstedt: ‘Everyone had a hand in this win’]

“We don’t measure it against the defense that we play,” receiver Rome Odunze said. “It’s about the execution that we have, our capabilities and our standards. As long as we adhere to that and we’re trying to continually get better, then we’ve had a good day.

“I thought we were firing on a lot of cylinders – I wouldn’t say all of them, though – and we had great success. Going forward, we can continue to make improvements so that this offense can put out a product like that on a regular basis.”

Eberflus kept harping on improvements after the game, a message that clearly got through to his players. Sunday’s win wasn’t a reason to party. It should start a quest for even better.

“It’s our goal to do that every week, to do our jobs and do it the right way,” center Coleman Shelton said. “We want to protect, run the ball well and have explosives on offense. We expect good each week and we expect to build off of those performances each time.”