Chicago Bears coach John Fox on Game 1: Not good enough

Given 24 hours to ponder his team's opening performance in his debut as their head coach, John Fox's overall impression of the Bears seemed to be, "not good enough."

Certainly they were not as good as the victorious Packers, especially in the all-important area of the red zone.

On five trips inside the Bears' 20, Green Bay came away with 31 points on 4 touchdowns and 1 field goal. The Bears' three trips inside the Packers' 20 produced 10 points.

Look no further than that for the biggest factor in the Packers' 31-23 victory.

"We just didn't execute as well as we needed to in the red area," Fox said. "There were some elements of protection, (and) there were some elements of the route running. They executed better down there in the tight end of the field than we did."

All of that was on display during the Bears' red-zone fail midway through the fourth quarter, the only one that resulted in no points.

Trailing 24-16, Jay Cutler completed passes of 50 yards to Marquess Wilson, 10 yards to Alshon Jeffery and 4 yards to Matt Forte on consecutive snaps to give the Bears second-and-goal at the Packers' 2-yard line.

Then he threw 3 straight incompletions, the last on fourth-and-2 while under pressure from a Packers blitz.

Kyle Long, playing right tackle in a game for the first time in his career, took blame for allowing Cutler to be pressured by blitzing safety Sean Richardson, which resulted in a pass that sailed way over Eddie Royal's head.

"That fourth-and-goal where the (safety) blitzes in the A gap, that's my guy," Long said. "There's a reason Jay can't make that throw - it's because there's a guy with his arms up in his face."

Fox wouldn't single out Long, who had just one week of practice before making the position change from guard, but said there wasn't much Cutler could do in that situation.

"I really don't like getting too much into scheme," Fox said when asked about blitz pickup. "But we needed to do much better. Jay probably did as well as he can for an unblocked guy running right down the middle of your front."

The play-calling - 4 straight passes inside the 10-yard line - is open to debate, but with the advantage of hindsight everyone's an expert.

"It's easier after the play or after the series to make calls," Fox said. "Even I figured that out. But, at the end of the day, it's about executing.

"Whether you're running the ball or passing the ball, you have 11 guys that need to do their job, and that's what we refer to as execution. For what (defense the Packers) were playing, I didn't dislike what we were in and what we tried to do. We just didn't do it well enough."

The defense had its own problems, even though it allowed just 322 total yards, 129 yards fewer than in the last meeting with Green Bay. Aaron Rodgers' 140.5 passer rating Sunday was exceptional, even for him.

"There's plenty of room for improvement," Fox said, noting the defense's inability to get off the field on third down. "As good as we were on offense on third down, we didn't do as well defensively."

The Bears converted 65 percent of their third downs (11 of 17), far better than last year's league average 39.9. But they allowed the Packers to convert 60 percent on third down (6 of 10), clearly not good enough.

Just like a lot of what the Bears did in Week 1.

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