'That's all we can do': How the Chicago Bears will pick up the pieces from another heartbreak

CHICAGO - As soon as the blocked kick happened, plenty of questions already began.

Could the Chicago Bears have gotten closer? Should they have gotten closer for a game-winning field goal attempt that was ultimately blocked?

"I felt like it was right on target," Bears kicker Cairo Santos said. "I like the line that it took."

Three weeks ago, a Hail Mary lifted Washington in dramatic fashion over the Chicago Bears.

On Sunday, a blocked game-winning field goal attempt kept the Bears from finally beating the Green Bay Packers.

Heartbreak, in its purest form, has become something the Bears have become accustomed to this season. It's a feeling no team wants to harbor, let alone twice in one season. 

Where do the Bears go now? Most of them simply said: back to work.

"I can say we're professionals, so we're going work every single day and find ways to prevent stuff like this," running back D'Andre Swift said."But, I've been on the side of this type of stuff too many times and more I can count, but I get back to work."

The Bears struggled to get over that Hail Mary loss. There was no miracle move on drug; instead, losses to Arizona and New England deadpanned the Bears into making a bold move and firing offensive coordinator Shane Waldron.

That move seemed to have paid off. The Bears recorded 23 first downs, 391 total yards and scored two touchdowns.

Scoring touchdowns might not seem like earth-shattering developments, but the Bears went two whole games without one. It's deserved in this sense.

The Bears will take the positive movement.

"We know we're that close," Bears receiver Rome Odunze said. "Buy into the very end and we need to continue to do so because in this league, it's often going to come down to those type of plays and those type of situations. Just maintaining our composure and knowing we still got games to play."

The Bears could go back and look at the blocked kick again.

Maybe there was a different explanation. Gervon Dexter Sr. was called for a "leverage" foul against Arizona. That turned a field goal into a touchdown.

Could the same rule apply here? The Bears were complimentary of the play that went down in the record books as opposed to anything that didn't.

"(Packers' defender Karl Brooks) just made a great play," Santos said. "Put his hand right in the trajectory where the ball started."

This leaves the Bears at 4-6. They're 0-1 in NFC North play. The Packers have a franchise record 11 straight wins over the Bears, too. 

This all occurred on a day when the Bears didn't turn the ball over, didn't make crushing mistakes and showed night-and-day improvement on the offensive side of the football.

It was a day when things seemed to be going right for the Bears. Until it all came crashing down in the waning seconds.

"Tough times don't last, but tough people do," Bears head coach Matt Eberflus said. "That's where it's at right now. We've just got to get back to work once we look at the tape, make the corrections, because there was good, of course, in every performance, and there's things we've got to clean up in every performance, and we've got to move to the next one after we do that."

Getting to a position to clean up those things means getting back into Halas Hall this week.

"Come back to work," Bears cornerback Terell Smith said. "We have practice on Wednesday and just move forward."

There aren't many other options at this point, either.

"That's all we can do," Swift said.