Bears fall seven spots in Power Rankings

After checking in at No. 8 for last week’s edition of ESPN’s NFL Power Rankings, the Chicago Bears dropped seven spots to No. 15 in the latest installment, coming off a 38-17 loss Sunday to the Green Bay Packers.

The club’s standing makes sense, because from what we’ve seen so far of the Bears, it’s certainly performing like a just above middle-of-the-pack club.

In addition to the defense allowing Aaron Rodgers to shred it for four touchdown passes and a passer rating of 151.2, quarterback Jay Cutler minimized Chicago’s chances for victory with a pair of interceptions that led to Green Bay touchdowns.

In the aftermath of the loss, predictably, overreaction set in. But it’s important to remember the Bears are just a quarter of the way through the season, and what we’ve seen in the first four games by no means is the finished product.

“As with most losses, they’re disappointing, and certainly [Sunday] was a disappointing loss,” Bears coach Marc Trestman said on Monday. “We came back [Monday], the guys came back [Monday]. We showed the tape, collectively, offensively, defensively, special teams; made the corrections we had to make, and now we’re moving on.”

Elsewhere in the division, every team outside of the Bears made somewhat of a climb up the rankings. Detroit holds the top spot among the NFC North at No. 8, moving up four places from No. 12. The Packers jumped five spots from 17 to 12, while the Minnesota Vikings moved up five places from 29^th to No. 24.

“We’ve got to win games at home. Green Bay, a divisional opponent. ... We’ve just got to play better,” Cutler said Monday during ESPN 1000’s “The Jay Cutler Show."

Starting with a matchup Sunday at Carolina, the Bears play three of the next four on the road heading into their Nov. 2 bye. Chicago’s three upcoming road opponents (Carolina, Atlanta and New England) currently hold a combined 6-5 record.

“We’ve had a rough stretch,” Cutler said. “We’re gonna go through a pretty rough stretch, like you guys were talking about earlier, the next four games. So we’ve just got to take it one game at a time.”