WATCH: Bears and Packers Highlights

Jordan Love and the Green Bay Packers extended the Bears losing streak to 11 straight and beat them for ninth straight time, 38-20.

Eddie Jackson meant it to be encouraging, or at least describe the task ahead for the Bears after Sunday.

"You've just got to let truth soak in," Jackson said. "As much as it hurts, as bad as it feels, we've got to come out and there's still 16 more games left."

That's a great deal of soaking in and plenty of necessary improvement, or a lot of potential disasters. 

The Bears came out in their first game of the season and made it seem Aaron Rodgers had never left Green Bay, as Jordan Love threw for three touchdowns in a 38-20 Packers victory.

The Bears unleashed an avalanche of bad plays, silly mistakes and penalties that made it look like a flashback to any number of other games with the Packers over the years. But they didn't have Rodgers' mastery to blame because their conqueror this time was a quarterback who had started one NFL game.

"I thought for the most part I think he did well," coach Matt Eberflus said of Love. "He did well today and obviously they executed on third down. My hat's off to him."

Love threw for 245 yards on 15 of 27, including 8-yard and 4-yard passes to Romeo Doubs and a slant running back Aaron Jones converted into a huge 35-yard touchdown in the third quarter.

"We left a lot of plays out there on offense and defense and didn't play like we know we can," cornerback Jaylon Johnson said.

The offense made its mistakes throughout the game, but especially early. The defense waited until the third quarter to really collapse. 

The omen of things to come came on the first Bears drive when Justin Fields failed to convert a quarterback sneak for a first down on a fourth-and-1 gamble at his 40. This came after they tried trickery and botched it up as Cole Kmet tried to line up behind center and sneak for a yard. He fumbled the snap and they got it back but then couldn't get the first down the next play.

"A sneak converts at a high rate on inches, just by percentage," Eberflus explained. "So that's why we liked it."

But it was early in the game for a gamble.

And they gift-wrapped field position for Love and Jones to get the ball into position for Doubs' 8-yard TD catch with 6:08 left in the first quarter. 

Cairo Santos came back with field goals of 47 and 29 yards and Anders Carlson had a 52-yarder to close the half for the Packers. In spite of four penalties for 31 yards and generally sloppy play, the Bears had outgained Green Bay in the first half 147 yards to 100.

Then the piano fell from the top of the building and hit them in the third quarter.

The defense gave up 229 yards of offense in the second half. Jones scored on a 1-yard run to end a 75-yard drive starting the third quarter. Then he caught the 35-yard TD pass on Green Bay's next possession and suddenly the Bears were looking at a 24-6 deficit. 

"The first half we were pretty good in terms of being ready to play," Eberflus said. "So the onset of that was good. I think we came out in the second half and they executed better than we did. 

"Again third downs was a big piece of that today. Some of it is because of penalties and then execution. We've got to get off the field on third down." 

The Packers converted 9-of-16 third downs and the mistakes kept coming on both sides of the ball for the Bears. 

Fields threw an interception Quay Walker returned for a 37-yard TD and Green Bay went up 38-14 in the fourth quarter. Doubs caught a 4-yard TD pass in the fourth quarter, as well.

If the Bears had answered back on offense it might have been different but they kept throwing screen passes and dinking and dunking. They couldn't get the ball to the wide receiver they're paying $20 million, DJ Moore. He had two targets and two catches for 25 yards.

"At the end of the day the defense was kind of pushed over to me," Moore said. "So it was hard to see me. I understand that. So I've just got to learn from it."

Eventually Darnell Mooney, who led the receivers with four catches for 53 yards, caught a third-quarter 20-yard TD from Fields. But the Bears QB overall experienced a miserable day with 24 of 37 for 216 yards and four sacks, including a strip-sack. 

"I think we got in a rhythm starting off early but I think the moral of the story is that we shot ourselves in the foot so many times," Fields said, referring to seven penalties for 61 yards. "Presnap penalties, false starts, holdings, and then when we put ourselves in third-and-longs, third-and-10, third-and-15.

"It's hard to convert on that for an NFL offense. I think if we just clear that up, keep getting better at the end we'll be fine."

If they don't, those 16 games ahead might start to resemble the last 11, the length of their current losing streak. 

BearDigest@BearsOnMaven