‘Taking Our Lumps’ Chicago Bears’ Ben Johnson opens up on turning the page from Packers loss

Sunday against the Cleveland Browns represents a sneakily big test for head coach Ben Johnson and the Chicago Bears.

While the game will hold little weight in terms of tiebreaker scenarios in a tightly wound NFC Playoff picture, and it is an out-of-conference game, the Bears have given themselves little margin for error in both the NFC North and NFC Wild Card races that would make tripping up against the Browns pretty calamitous in a promising season with legitimate postseason aspirations.

However, for Johnson, hosting the Browns on Sunday afternoon at Soldier Field is a legitimate test of his team’s temperament.

Chicago Bears must avoid one loss bleeding into two

Johnson’s Bears are a young team with little postseason experience, and few games had higher stakes in recent years than Sunday’s loss to the Green Bay Packers, at Lambeau Field, which knocked Chicago from the NFC North lead, all the way into the conference’s final wild card spot.

How the Bears respond Sunday afternoon, could prove critical against a loaded Browns defense that already took down Green Bay, in upset fashion, earlier this season.

“Yeah, I mean, I think what you just said is entirely accurate. Our guys do a good job of taking our lumps from this,” Johnson told reporters. “We will learn from it. We will make our corrections and we will move on. We will get right back to work. We have a process that we believe in and the work that we put in throughout the week is so important to giving us a chance on gameday. They know that. They believe that and that is really what we will do when we come back in. Tomorrow we will come in and we’ll clean up the tape and then Wednesday we are right back at it.

“We have another good opponent coming in, in Cleveland. I don’t care what their record says. They have a damn good defense so that is kind of the stretch that we are in here this back half of the season. It is good defense after good defense after good defense and so we are going to have to step up to the plate and respond the right way.”

The challenge for any young team, and any first-time head coach, is guarding his roster against the emotional letdown of a disappointing loss bleeding into the following week, allowing a loss like Chicago’s to the Packers to bleed into Sunday’s game against the Browns.

In some ways, the Bears’ backs are already against the proverbial wall after Sunday’s loss, but with games against the Lions and Packers remaining over the final month, Chicago still has plenty of opportunities to rewrite the narrative and improve their playoff seeding.

But, in order for those games to matter and carry the kind of postseason implications the Bears hope, Chicago needs to handle its business against the Browns on Sunday afternoon.

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