Same old Bears mistakes bit them in butt disastrously in loss vs. Ravens

The Chicago Bears have played sloppy football throughout the season, but have made enough splash plays to cover up the mistakes. In Week 8, that sloppy play caught up with them in their 30-16 loss to the Ravens.

"You know it's our first game in awhile... that we didn't have a takeaway," head coach Ben Johnson told reporters after the game. "When that happens, you really gotta play a clean game and we didn't."

What went wrong for the Bears in their loss to the Ravens

The biggest problems for the Bears offense this year have been bad penalties and poor situational execution. Each of those problems persisted on Sunday, and played a role in the loss.

The Bears had a whopping 11 penalties accepted against them on Sunday and managed to work through many of them, including two false starts. When a team hits double-digit penalties, though, they're bound make an impact, and two of those penalties had huge implications.

First was an illegal formation on a Tory Taylor punt with 6:49 to go in the first half. In the box score it goes down as a five-yard penalty, but really it took away a great opportunity for the Bears defense to get a stop and flip the field.

Initially, Taylor and Jonathan Owens had teamed up to pin the Ravens on their own one-yard line. Refs ruled that D'Marco Jackson wasn't lined up properly with his helmet crossing the center's belt line. It's a simple procedural penalty that has hurt the Bears before earlier this year. This time it pushed the Bears back and forced them to punt again, and on his second try, Taylor kicked the ball out of bounds at the Ravens' 22-yard line. That 21-yard field position defense proved pivotal, as the Ravens had room to work and used that extra room to work into field goal range for a 42-yard chip shot.

On the ensuing drive, the Bears had 1:02 and two timeouts to try to score before half. Johnson had to burn that first timeout after a 22-yard Caleb Williams scramble, when Williams opted to turn upfield rather than getting out of bounds.

"I thought I could get more if I didn't go out," Williams told reporters after the game, acknowledging that he could've ran out of bounds to save time.

Two snaps later, Williams drew an intentional grounding penalty because he said he and rookie tight end Colston Loveland weren't on the same page.

"It's a choice route, he has a couple different options to break in, sit or break out," Williams said.

Williams threw the out breaker, but Loveland cut in.

The ensuing penalty pushed the Bears back, forced them to burn their last timeout and put them in fire drill mode. Loveland got nine yards back on the next play, and the kicking unit was able to get out and get a kick off in time, but Cairo Santos' 58-yard attempt fell just short.

An opportunity to take the lead, or at least cut the lead to one point, dashed by a couple of miscues in a big moment.

Of course, the game would have felt much different if the Bears had been able to capitalize in the red zone in the first quarter. In the early stages of the game, the Bears were dominating time of possession and moving the ball at will against the Ravens' defense, but two first quarter drives fizzled once they got in striking range.

What could've been a 14-0 lead after 15 minutes was 6-0, instead. After just one solid Ravens drive the script flipped entirely, Baltimore went up 7-6 and they never looked back.

The Bears had other opportunities that they squandered throughout the game. A late Williams interception deep in Bears territory and a disjointed goal-to-go series sealed the loss, and Williams and Johnson each took accountability for their mistakes in those moments. Williams could've thrown a better ball so that a Ravens defender didn't under cut it. Johnson could've called better plays to save time and give the team a better chance to score at the end of the game.

It was the little things that doomed them, though, and it was the little things that seemed to bother Johnson and Williams the most.

Read more: Ben Johnson calls out leaders in the locker room after loss to Ravens

"That stuff adds up and it hurts us," Johnson said. "We get away with it occasionally, but that's just not the way that you win in this league."