CHICAGO – Jaylon Johnson stayed on the field for several moments after a heartbreaking end to Sunday’s 20-19 loss to the Green Bay Packers, where his Bears played and fought valiantly but fell on a blocked field goal attempt as time expired.

Always one to look at his performance first, Johnson stewed over the a fourth-quarter play where he tripped over Christian Watson’s feet and the Green Bay receiver was suddenly open for a diving catch and run than went 60 yards and set up the go-ahead Packers touchdown.

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Then his mind went elsewhere, in lockstep with every Bears fan after this brutal result.

First the Hail Mary. Now this.

“Yeah. It’s almost comical,” Johnson said. “Luck of the draw at this damn point.”

Johnson was asked how he would process this one, where the Bears turned their offense around and the defense played well but Chicago lost on a play they make exponentially more often than not.

It took him 11 seconds to respond.

“I feel like you really have no choice but to accept the cards you’re dealt,” Johnson said. “We came up short.”

That was the prevailing sense in the Bears locker room, as players search for how they could lose in such painful ways over a four-game span.

This wasn’t as controversial as Tyrique Stevenson’s actions in Washington or the downtrodden aftermath of the Cardinals loss or the flummoxed feeling after the offense hit rock bottom against New England.

Caleb Williams played really well. The offense came back to life under new coordinator Thomas Brown. The Bears showed fight despite all the bad that’s happened in recent weeks.

“It’s a tough loss,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “We’ve had two in the past month now that have been pretty devastating, that I haven’t experienced before like that, but, in terms of the guys in the locker room, everybody fought in that game. I thought we did some really good stuff. I don’t want the result to take away from that. It naturally does, but it’s a tough loss overall.”

The Bears haven’t responded well to tough losses in recent weeks. They admittedly took too long to get over that mess in Washington, which bled into the Arizona game. Then Shane Waldron’s job status became a distraction heading into the change at offense coordinator.

Caleb Williams said USC head coach Lincoln Riley called him and offered some sage advice for how to stay up during tough times.

Keep going.

It was something Riley told Williams as a freshman when they were at Oklahoma, before both of them ended up at USC, when he was frustrated at not starting.

“At that time I didn’t necessarily know what those two words meant,” Williams said. “I wanted more than that. I wanted to hear a little bit more than that. That’s all he told me. I use those words to this day. Once I got the starting spot and I just kept working, kept going. That’s all you can do. That’s all we can do, is keep going, keep our head down and find ways to win. And so we’re gonna keep going now.”