LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Cairo Santos sent a kick straight and true through the Houston air, with enough accuracy and distance to convert a 53-yard field goal.

That tied the game early against the Texans in Week 2, marking the first time the Bears scored on their opening drive.

It was also the last.

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The Bears have scored just 10 first quarter points all season, with the Santos field goal and a DJ Moore touchdown reception versus Carolina as the only points scored in the first quarter all season long. Outside of those instances and a missed field goal, the Bears have punted 11 times on their first two series.

While each game is its own entity with unique factors and variables, slow starts have been a constant throughout them all. There are different reasons why, but the results, or lack thereof, have been the same.

The Bears can’t get going early. Not at all.

“We have to be better in the first quarter,” quarterback Caleb Williams said. “That starts with me coming out fast. That starts with us coming out fast. We keep getting the ball early on. We have a great defense to help us stay in it but we have to be better and play complementary football.”

It’s not that the Bears aren’t scoring early. They’re struggling to move the football. Of the 14 first or second series the Bears have played this season, they’ve gone three and out seven times.

None of that is good, especially when the opening group plays are scripted or at least heavily rehearsed leading into the game.

“It’s something that inwardly we’ve talked about every single week and it’s something we’ve addressed and talked through the why each game,” offensive coordinator Shane Waldron said. “Because, again, each game has its different set of issues that may present themselves.”

The Bears have fared far better as a game wears on, a positive that they’re generally playing good football late in games. That was the case in a loss to Washington, where Caleb Williams looked off, protection suffered and pre-snap penalties were drive killers.

A switch flipped in the fourth quarter, and the Bears put two solid drives together. The first ended with that ill-fated Doug Kramer fumble and the second was a go-ahead Roschon Johnson TD run that should’ve won the game. We all know what happened after that.

Slow starts heap pressure on the defense to keep things close – they done that consistently well –and create situations that are unnecessarily tense. Had the Bears started faster against Washington, that game might not have come down to the Hail Mary.

“It’s about getting out there, being confident and staying ahead of the sticks and having a successful first quarter,” Waldron said. “But then also having that mindset though of the first quarter, if something doesn’t work out, we’ve got to bounce right back for the next play, the next drive, the next opportunity to score.”