CHICAGO – We’re at the point in an awful Bears season where players are talking about putting good work on tape.

That’s how far the Bears have fallen.

There’s nothing else to play for at this late date, with a season lost to an all-consuming losing streak that reached nine(!) games following Sunday’s 34-17 loss to the Detroit Lions.

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Mounting frustration was a postgame theme following most of these games, even directly after the Bears were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

There’s less of that now, following a third straight margin of defeat of at least 17 points. That’s a stretch where the Bears have been thumped, outscored 102-42 after a series of heartbreaking nailbiters.

There’s a bit more of a shoulder shrug without answers the Bears have been questing after for weeks and weeks. It’s not that the players don’t care. There just isn’t much to say when all these games follow the same script.

The team starts slow and falls behind early. They improve as the game progresses, but can’t catch up to a multiple-score deficit. We’re rinsing and repeating at this point, so there’s no positives or learning from results that are all essentially the same.

“I’m kinda done doing that,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “I’ve been through this now. Two years ago, it felt like trying to find positives through things and it’s hard for me, like, be real with myself and find positives when we lose 34-17.”

The Bears have been asked a ton about effort now that the season’s washed. I always have a tough time with the lack-of-effort concept in a game played a million miles per hour, where career-ending injury risk never relents.

Attention to detail, however, now that may slip.

“The effort’s there,” safety Kevin Byard III said. “The focus? It’s what you put on tape.”

Lack of focus shows up when a defensive line jumps offsides on a fourth-down the Lions lined up for but sure weren’t going to attempt. Lack focus shows up on a penalty for smacking the ball out of an opponent’s hand post-whistle.

The Bears aren’t mailing it in. These guys want to play hard and want to win. But there was a no-moral-victories attitude in the locker room. The fight is good. The final score is not.

“I do appreciate the way the guys continue to battle and keep fighting, but it’s not good enough,” interim head coach Thomas Brown said. “We gotta coach it better, demand a better result.”

The Bears vowed to keep searching for a better result, even with two games remaining an another last-place finish long since assured.

“You only have two options,” slot cornerback Kyler Gordon said. “You either give up or you do that. I choose to keep working.”