Smith (as usual) closely guarded on injuries to Hester, McGowan

The Bears may have to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday at Soldier Field without return specialist-wide receiver Devin Hester and safety Brandon McGowan.

Hester had swelling in the area of his rib injury Monday and was scheduled for an MRI later in the day. McGowan was still unable to put much weight on his sprained left ankle.

As usual, coach Lovie Smith was less than forthcoming regarding the injuries or the players' status.

"Devin has a rib injury and Brandon has an ankle injury," Smith said. "As far as how long (they) will be out, I'm not going to get into all of that. We're doing everything we can to see exactly where they are, to check them out the best we can. We'll give you an update a little bit later on."

Expect official word to come down sometime late Sunday morning for the noon kickoff. Since there didn't seem to be any evidence of Hester taking a hit to the ribs, his injury appears to be a strain or a pull. McGowan is not expected to play vs. the Bucs, and Hester might be no better than 50-50.

Wide receiver Rashied Davis didn't want to think about injuries, but he said overcoming adversity is part of the game.

"Everybody that's in the game has to make plays, period," Davis said. "No matter who's in there, you have to make plays - that's what you're here for, that's why you have a job."

Just missed it: After the Panthers fought back to within 17-13 in the fourth quarter Sunday, the Bears had an excellent opportunity to put the game out of reach.

From his own 13-yard line, QB Kyle Orton launched a deep pass down the middle for WR Marty Booker, who was a stride behind the coverage. But Orton's pass was just beyond Booker's reach.

"It's a game of inches," said Booker, who played only about 20 snaps and had 1 catch for 4 yards. "We missed it by inches. Unfortunately, it worked out that way. I think we left a lot of plays out there, period."

The Bears allowed Carolina to score the game's final 17 points and steal a 20-17 victory.

"We could have put the game out of reach, and it would have been smooth sailing," Booker said. "But when you let teams in this league hang around, eventually they're going to come back. They came back, and they got us."

No worries: Brandon Lloyd's diving 14-yard catch in the third quarter left him lying on his back, untouched inside the 1-yard line, but he was touched down before he could get into the end zone.

"I didn't know where I was until I kind of rolled over and said, `Oh, there's the pylon,' and I stuck the ball out," Lloyd said. "But I knew once we put our jumbo package in we would have scored. I walked off, and coach Lovie (Smith) was like, 'Did you score? Did you score?' I was like, 'No, don't worry about it, we'll get it.'

Fullback Jason McKie scored on the next play.

House of Payne: After review of film by coaches, second-year strong safety Kevin Payne was credited with 13 tackles, including 8 solos, both team highs.

"Kevin played well, (had) some good hits," Lovie Smith said. "When you have a loss, it's hard to say this guy really played good enough to win, but Kevin Payne made a lot of progress from Game 1 to Game 2. We wanted to see that."