DETROIT — On Day 663 of the general manager Ryan Poles/coach Matt Eberflus regime, there was progress.
In Game 28, a step forward.
And then not.
The Bears were ahead by 12 points and kicking off to the Lions with 4:15 left Sunday and somehow managed to leave Ford Field with a 31-26 loss.
The Lions remain the class of the NFC North. The Bears? In nine tries, they’ve still yet to win a division game under Poles, who once promised to ‘‘take the North and never give it back,’’ and Eberflus.
What might have been a turning point instead sent the Bears backward, like quarterback Justin Fields’ fumble into the end zone with 29 seconds left that cost them a chance to tie the game. The safety was the 17th point the Lions scored in a span of 2:37. Before that, they had 14 all game.
The Bears have yet to win back-to-back games under Eberflus, a modest feat that would have been accomplished with a victory Sunday. They’ve still yet to beat a team with a winning record during his tenure.
In losing Sunday, the Bears became the answer to a trivia question that’s as depressing as their melodramatic 3-8 season has been. Since the NFL/AFL merger, there have been 61 games in which a team held the ball for at least 40 minutes and had four takeaways, as the Bears did Sunday. The Bears became the first such team to lose in regulation and only the third to lose at all.
‘‘We didn’t finish it as a football team, didn’t finish it as coaches, as players, the right way,’’ Eberflus said. ‘‘And there’s a lot of plays to be had out there — and good calls that we could’ve made in those situations — to get us that victory.’’
The Bears have another six games to figure out Eberflus’ future. A season of upheaval — two assistants leaving as the result of human-resources issues continues to cast doubt on his leadership — has allowed few opportunities for traction.
Against the Lions, momentum slipped through their fingers. The biggest offender in the final minutes was too familiar to Eberflus. The defensive unit for which Eberflus calls plays — and for which Poles acquired end Montez Sweat for a second-round pick and signed to a four-year, $98 million contract extension — gave up a 75-yard touchdown drive in 1:16 and a 73-yard touchdown drive in 2:04.
Eberflus pointed to instances in which the Bears missed open-field tackles that would have run the clock or forced the Lions to take a timeout.
‘‘They just went down the field too fast,’’ he said.
Quarterback Jared Goff had a 122.6 passer rating on the two drives, and that doesn’t include a two-point conversion pass to tight end Sam LaPorta.
Cornerback Tyrique Stevenson, who had an interception and a forced fumble on a kickoff return, said the feeling was ‘‘unexplainable.’’ Receiver Tyler Scott, however, tried to explain it.
‘‘We should have beat that team,’’ he said. ‘‘We did everything we should have except for executing in those moments.’’
The Bears’ inability to execute when it matters most has cost them over and over this season, whether it’s Fields throwing an interception on a screen against the Buccaneers or fumbling the ball away for a touchdown so the Broncos could tie the score with seven minutes left.
Eberflus then went for it on fourth-and-one four minutes later against the Broncos and was stuffed.
The Bears lost both games.
Eberflus said players and coaches alike deserve the blame for the collapse Sunday.
‘‘It’s me and them; it’s not just them,’’ he said. ‘‘So we’ve got to look at it and see what we could’ve done better.’’
What he’ll see is what he has seen all season: a bad team finding a new improbable way to lose.
