Mitchell Trubisky appeared to pay for his lack of preseason action in a poor NFL opener Thursday but insisted that was not the reason for the Bears' loss.
The Bears lost, 10-3, to the Packers in a game dominated by the two defenses, with Trubisky looking particularly dismal, going 26-of-45 passing for 228 yards with no touchdowns and a red zone interception.
The Chicago quarterback did not throw a single pass in the preseason, yet he suggested it should not have been an issue come Week 1.
"I know you guys [the media] are going to try to draw comparisons like that, but really — I wish I could have said this before — the snaps in the preseason have nothing to do with the way we execute," he told reporters.
"The sloppiness was tonight. We weren't doing that in practice. We were smooth in practice.
"It just seemed a little scattered tonight with all of our personnel, trying to find a rhythm and trying to find our identity on offense. We just put ourselves in bad situations and shot ourselves in the foot.
"You can maybe contribute it to that [the lack of a preseason], but I think it's kind of a stretch. It was just uncharacteristic to who we usually are as an offense. We need to do our job."
Final. #GBvsCHI | #Bears100 pic.twitter.com/xcQaSCqZrx
— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 6, 2019
Trubisky did acknowledge he was left feeling as though he had let down his teammates and Bears fans, though.
Asked to analyze his performance, he replied: "Not that good, not that good. I definitely left a lot of plays out there.
"Just myself and as an offense, we really couldn't find a rhythm there. We struggled on third down, obviously. That was apparent. We've got to be better on first and second down to stay in manageable situations on third down.
"I felt like I made some good throws here and there, made good decisions for the most part, but I think it was just sloppy by myself and the offense as a whole, just going through all our procedures.
"It was just tough. We couldn't find a rhythm. It's really frustrating, because it's very uncharacteristic of this offense - especially with the way we've been practicing.
"But the type of guys we've got in there - obviously our defense, special teams battled all night to keep us in it - we've just got to continue to pull together, look within ourselves and find answers to make sure we're not feeling like this again.
"I definitely feel like I let a lot of my team-mates and the fans down with the way I played. I definitely feel like I could have done better."