Chicago Bears just not prepared in loss to Raiders

The Chicago Bears' 24-21 loss to the Oakland Raiders on Sunday in London was a textbook example of what happens to an NFL team when it shows up ill prepared to play and the other club simply wants it more.

Apparently a lot more.

Yes, it did appear the Bears' alarm clocks finally went off at halftime, leading to a spirited third-quarter comeback during which they scored 21 straight points to take a 21-17 lead.

But, by any objective analysis, even that was far more a gift from the Raiders than a display of grit and guts from the Bears.

On just the Raiders' second play of the second half, quarterback Derek Carr called an audible at the line of scrimmage that Josh Jacobs either missed or didn't understand, and Carr pitched the ball to no one with the Bears recovering at Oakland's 14-yard line, leading to their first touchdown.

The Bears' offense had just one solid drive all afternoon, 12 plays for 89 yards that ended in their second score.

That was aided by a miraculous 32-yard grab by Anthony Miller on third-and-2 that took them to the Raiders' 9-yard line, a ball that almost certainly shouldn't have been thrown as it was most likely to end with Bears backup quarterback Chase Daniel's fourth interception of the game.

Daniel only finished with 2 picks on the score sheet because Miller saved him on that one and another pick by Oakland's Daryl Worley early in the fourth quarter at the Bears' 34 after they had taken the lead was overturned by another of those questionable roughing-the-passer calls we've seen so many of, this one on Maurice Hurst.

All 3 of the interceptions Daniel did throw were of the absolutely awful variety you look at on tape and scream "what could he possibly have seen or thought?"

But even with that, while Daniel clearly is not a better option than Mitch Trubisky, he also IS not the reason the Bears got beat.

The Bears lost because Oakland absolutely dominated on both sides of the line of scrimmage, a physical beating that seemed impossible after the way the Bears did the same thing to the Minnesota Vikings a week earlier.

However, the truth is, that happens to every NFL team eventually, making Nagy and company's job now to figure out which parts of the London embarrassment were just one of those things and which are problems that must be fixed.

Immediately following the game, Nagy started with this: "You know, in this game, you know, it usually starts up front, and that's - we know that. We preach it, we talk it. We understand that, and we just, throughout the game, weren't real successful offensively with running the football. It's been an issue this year, and so we need to figure out why."

Actually there were two things wrong with the run game Sunday. The Bears just couldn't, and their top-ranked run defense allowed the Raiders to rush 39 times for 169 yards.

All you have to do is look back to last week against Minnesota to know the run 'D' can and will be fixed.

As to the Bears' ground game and offense as a whole, Nagy said, "Not good enough, you put in a lot of work to be better. We know where we're at, and so it's my job to make sure that it gets better, and what's the how, what's the why, and I believe wholeheartedly in all of our guys.

"But we need to - each person, every coach, every player - time to start looking at themselves in the mirror and figuring out why you're out there and why we're out there."

The process will start with a long and very unpleasant flight back across the pond Monday.

On it players and coaches will come to realize everything they hoped and still hope to accomplish this season is still in front of them.

Then, over what will now be a long and painful bye week, they will have to search for those answers in the mirror and discover whether or not they are in fact built for this.

• Hub Arkush, the executive editor of Pro Football Weekly, can be reached at harkush@profootballweekly.com or on Twitter @Hub_Arkush.