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Will Bears be ready for regular season?

Based on their putrid offensive showing in Saturday's horror matinee at Soldier Field, the Bears are not ready for prime time or for the start of the regular season on Sept. 11.

Through the first two quarters, when both teams played their healthy starters, the Bears were outgained by the Kansas City Chiefs 239-18. The Chiefs, who won for the first time, 23-7, possessed the ball for 21 minutes and 54 seconds of the first 30 minutes. The Bears simply looked possessed, as they fell to 0-3 and have been outscored 68-29 in the preseason.

Yeah, it's just the preseason, as Bears coach John Fox has pointed out many times. But it's the preseason for the other teams, too, and yet they manage to block and tackle and catch and run.

While the Chiefs' starters averaged 5.3 yards on their 45 offensive plays, the Bears averaged exactly 1 yard on their 18 snaps.

"Obviously not as good as we would have liked," Fox said. "We were short some guys, I'm sure like most people in the preseason. But it is preseason."

The Bears were without their best player, three-time Pro Bowl guard Kyle Long, tight end Zach Miller and cornerback Kyle Fuller. But the Chiefs were missing running back Jamaal Charles, safety Eric Berry and outside linebackers Justin Houston and Tamba Hali.

"I think there were some good things, some plays," Fox said of the first-team offense. "Up front there were some good things in the running game."

Jeremy Langford had a 10-yard run in the first half and Jay Cutler scrambled for 8 yards, but the offense had just 2 first downs in the first half and no points. Given one possession to start the second half, the Bears' offense put together its best "drive" of the game, picking up 3 first downs. But that didn't produce points either, as Robbie Gould's 48-yard field goal attempt went wide left.

Cutler completed just 6 of 15 passes for 45 yards for a 47.9 passer rating, and he was sacked twice.

"We're still missing some guys," Cutler said. "We're going to have a flux of guys coming into the lineup that we've been without the last couple of weeks. It's going to make us a little more dynamic and give us a little more explosion out there."

But Cutler did have his most explosive weapons at his disposal vs. the Chiefs. Pro Bowl wide receiver Alshon Jeffery had 2 catches for 18 yards and 2 drops, including a second-quarter gaffe that could have resulted in an 80-yard touchdown. Kevin White, the seventh overall draft pick in 2015, had 1 catch for 3 yards and also had an egregious drop. Langford picked up 17 yards on 6 carries for a 2.8-yard average.

Scavenging for positives, the defense played well enough to hold the Chiefs to a 13-0 margin at halftime despite being on the field for more than two-thirds of the first 30 minutes.

"We knew our backs were against the wall," said linebacker Danny Trevathan, who played just over a quarter because he's recovering from a hamstring injury. "We worked all off-season to be that bend-but-don't-break (defense). It's not going to be perfect, but we have to have each other's backs. I feel like we held our own."

But that won't be good enough without better offensive output. The Bears were shut out in their preseason opener, and they didn't reach the endzone Saturday until it was too late to matter. The only points the Bears scored came under the direction of No. 3 quarterback Connor Shaw, who suffered a broken leg shortly after his 16-yard TD toss to Cam Meredith in garbage time.

Maybe they can use that as an excuse in the preseason finale Thursday against the Browns in Cleveland. The starters probably won't play, but they could clearly use the work.

• Follow Bob's Bears reports on Twitter @BobLeGere.

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