LAKE FOREST, Ill. – It’s uncertain whether the sun rose over Jaylon Johnson’s house on Monday morning. The star Bears cornerback wasn’t in a great mood when he stood before reporters a day after a 30-27 overtime loss to Minnesota.

It was the fifth straight Bears defeat, a run that has included some thrashings and a few heartbreakers. The Bears have seven losses overall and five of them have come in one-score games.

That leads to one obvious conclusion: the Bears can’t finish. They had to execute plays with high success rates in Washington and at home against Green Bay, and failed to knock down a Hail Mary and kick a makable field goal. The whole season feels different if they do those two things.

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They tried to steal a win with a furious fourth-quarterback comeback against Minnesota, when Caleb Williams went Super Saiyan, the Bears recovered an onside kick, Cairo Santos tied it with a late field goal and then Chicago won the overtime coin toss. They had all the momentum and squandered it with a failed offensive drive and an inability to get a stop despite Minnesota playing from behind the sticks four times on its game-winning drive.

All that’s why Johnson is taking this so hard and refused to look at the sunny side of things. Not at this point, anyway.

“There’s not too many new thoughts, not too much to think about,” he said. “At the end of the day, we don’t find ways to win.”

His frustration level is through the roof.

“I mean, none of this ideal,” Johnson said. “Nobody walks around – well, I don’t walk around with a smile on my face. There ain’t nuthin’ to be happy about.  So, I mean, obviously my frustration is at a high. Everybody’s frustration is at a high.”

The close losses make it worse. So do the repeated mistakes with an inability to fix them. Getting field goals blocked in back-to-back games – on consecutive attempts, no less – on the same part of the protection is a great example of that.

Head coach Matt Eberflus cited “technique” as the issue, something that was emphasized by coaches during the practice week yet still impacted a close game.

“We just have to do a better job there with that,” Eberflus said. 

The Bears defense, which has been so good so often this season, has a real problem giving up explosive plays. They’ll be good on third down and in the red zone, but lapses will creating game-altering negative moments that put the team in a bind. That happened time and again against the Vikings.

They allowed 10 explosive plays to the Vikings – runs of eight-plus yards and passes of 20-plus — factored into the final score line.

“I would honestly say it starts with the up front in the run,” Johnson said. “I feel like we’ve been giving up a lot of run yards and then I feel like explosive plays have really been killing us. I think overall, outside of that, we’re good. Third down we’re good, in red zone. I think just those two things have held us back from being who we know we can be.”

Eberflus didn’t have firm answers on how the Bears can do what’s required to start winning games again. He talked a lot about the details of certain plays and about finding consistency, but we’re late in the season and details and technical issues are still coming up.

Johnson put it plainly, as he’s known to do.

“For different reasons we’ve found ways to not execute when it counts,” Johnson said. “I mean, we’ve just got to figure out a way, whether it’s physically, mentally, whatever it is. We’ve got to get put guys in the right position, but we’ve got to execute.”

Eberflus was asked about areas of growth, outside of Thomas Brown getting Williams back on track, that could help the team emerge victorious.

“Just about hanging together, right?,” Eberflus said. “We’ve got to play complementary football for us to be able to win these games. The games that we’ve won, we’ve done that. And the games that we’ve been close, we’ve just missed the mark a little bit. Throughout the course of the year, it’s been one side or the other – this side or that side. But in this league, you have to be good on all sides to win. So that’s what we’re searching for. We’re searching for continuity, execution on all sides during this game right here.”

Johnson’s stance is simple. Talking about improvements and areas of strength isn’t important in a results-based business like professional football. The Bears have to win, and they aren’t doing that anymore.

“I don’t do all the hopes and dreams and all that,” Johnson said. “At the end of the day like I’ve been saying for a very long time, we got to win on Sunday. So I mean, right now we’re in a slump. I’ve been in slumps four, five years in a row now. So, I mean at the end of the day, I don’t look for, ‘Ok, what is going to be better in the future?’ God damn it. It will be better when it’s better. Right now, it’s not better. That’s all I can go off of.”