After watching tape of Sunday's 9-3 loss to the Vikings, Bears coach Ben Johnson spoke to reporters virtually Monday about three things that stood out to him:

(1) Johnson lamented the Bears' inability to take advantage of their scoring chances, noting that they came away without any points on drives that reached the Minnesota 1, 5 and 12 in the second half.

"We had plenty of opportunities to find a way to win that game," he said. "All three phases made game-changing plays, and we didn't quite take advantage of those opportunities and, as a result, we didn't end up winning it. But the guys fought hard. Proud of that. A lot of good learning tape for us to grow from. I think we'll be better for it in the long run."

Even after everything that went against them, the Bears still had a chance to score a go-ahead touchdown in the final seconds of the game. After Caleb Williams exited with a hamstring injury, replacement Tyson Bagent completed four passes for 53 yards in leading the offense to the Minnesota 12 with :10 remaining.

The Bears had three shots at the end zone, but Bagent threw back-to-back incomplete passes and was then sacked on the final play by defensive lineman Dallas Turner.

"I told the team that I was disappointed in our execution in those three plays," Johnson said. "And the reason is we've dedicated a lot of time and energy throughout the offseason, throughout training camp, walk-throughs, full-speed reps for many of those plays and what we need to do to have success there.

"We've detailed it. Each man's assignment is really important, and we didn't quite execute the way that we were looking to do in, really, all three of those plays. And I thought we had some opportunities and some good looks that we could have been a little bit cleaner on."

(2) The lack of success on early downs put the Bears in too many third-and-long situations against an aggressive Vikings defense.

In the first half, Bears running backs were limited to 27 yards on 12 carries and the offense committed seven penalties, resulting in third-and-13, third-and-12 and third-and-29 situations the unit was unable to convert.

"We didn't have as much efficiency in the running game as we would have liked just to keep things on track," Johnson said. "We ended up with a number of third-and-longs over the course of that game, which is really where [the Vikings] thrive. I don't know if there's another team that we've gone against that when you look at the distribution of where the third downs occur, third-and-10-plus was all over their tape, which is a credit to them. That's what they do. They wreak some havoc and they get you off schedule, and they reap the benefits from it.

"That happened to us a lot in the first half, and a lot of that was self-induced as well. The penalties were a major factor, more so than the weather or anything. It was the penalties, and things that we really hadn't seen in practice; they showed up there on game day. Even when we felt like we were getting a little momentum and staying ahead of the schedule there, we kind of shot ourselves in the foot a couple times.

"We were a lot better in the second half, no penalties offensively in the second half, and we ended up getting more yards, and I want to say [of] five possessions, three of them made it down to the red zone. I think more importantly than anything, you start with a first-and-goal from the 1, a first-and-goal from the 6 and, like we said, the three shots at the end of the game, and we end up getting zero points out of all three of those opportunities. That's really the tale of the second half."

(3) After nearly deflecting Cairo Santos' 50-yard field goal in the first quarter, the Vikings' Isaiah Rodgers blocked Santos' 23-yard attempt that could have tied the game 6-6 with 6:21 to play.

"The operation was not clean," Johnson said. "A high snap didn't help. That first field goal was a warning shot as far as I'm concerned. No. 2 was right off the edge. If he didn't touch it, then he was darn close to touching it then. [It was] something we addressed on the sideline, and we weren't able to get corrected the second time, so certainly in a race to get that right."