CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- When it comes to the everlasting promise and middling results of the Marc Trestman-brand Bears offense, it's starting to remind me of that rebuilding team on the North Side.

We'll talk about the future glory and look past the ugliness of the present until it's all in the past.

Here's the rub: The Cubs might realize their grand future before the Bears' offense.

Hey, don't laugh. What do you think happens first, the Bears get seven wins or the Cubs get Jon Lester?

It's five games into Year 2 of Trestman and Jay Cutler's marriage, and no one's happy. What happened to the honeymoon period?

Jay Cutler had three touchdowns against the Panthers, but it was his mistakes that again held the Bears back. AP Photo/Bob Leverone

Watching the Bears drop a head-scratcher to the Carolina Panthers 31-24 leaves one feeling unfulfilled.

It's not an uncommon feeling over the past two seasons. You keep waiting for the pieces to be in place, to borrow a Wanny-ism, but they don't fit. Maybe we're in too much of a hurry, like Matt Forte racing up a sideline only to get the end zone taken away from him by a missed block.

Maybe reality is Roman Harper, Father Time himself, bearing down on our high expectations and sending them to the turf.

Still, it's not like I had high hopes coming into the season. I predicted 9-7, but I thought the offense would be better. I thought it would be really good at something. It's not.

Meanwhile, the defense, while occasionally feisty in causing takeaways, can't make enough stops up front. The special-teams is embarrassing -- new Bear Teddy Williams' penalty that led to the Panthers' first touchdown was amateur hour. The Bears' offense gets yards, but they're empty calories without the touchdowns.

Trestman's whiz-bang offense has scored three points total in the past two second halves. In that span, the Bears have five turnovers.

On Sunday, the Bears had five fourth-quarter drives that netted 27 yards. Three of those drives ended in a turnover, though, to be fair, Cutler's fumble on fourth-and-21 to end the game came on a sack. Earlier, he had a crucial interception, which Forte followed with a fumble.

Cutler went 28-for-36 for 289 yards with three touchdowns (one rushing) and two interceptions. He was sacked four times.

Forte had 105 receiving yards on 12 catches, including a 10-yard touchdown, his first of the season, to go with 61 rushing yards on 17 carries.

Good numbers, bad results.

It's not like the Bears are churning out long touchdown drives. Of the Bears' three touchdowns Sunday, two came in short-field situations after a defensive takeaway. The last touchdown, which started on the Chicago 32 after a punt, was a 25-yard pass to Alshon Jeffery on a screen play, which came with 10:59 left in the second quarter.

The great Panthers defense, mostly linebacker Luke Kuechly and some misfits, kept the Bears' offense out of the end zone on its last eight possessions.

The Bears aren't 2-3 by accident. This isn't happenstance or a learning period. It's just a mediocre team moseying its way down the schedule, one game at a time.

"It's a lot of little things," Cutler said of the offense. "Turnovers are hurting us. Turnovers at critical times have hurt us, especially in the second half. We've been able to overcome them in the first half, but some of these second-half [turnovers] are hurting us. I've got to look at those."

We blame Cutler for a lot, and certainly he has his faults -- especially in the second half this season -- but it's not all on him. It's just bad things tend to happen on his team. Cutler's Law, as it were.

Matt Forte chewed up yards on Sunday, but a missed block by Martellus Bennett on a Forte run cost the Bears dearly. AP Photo/Mike McCarn

If there is one play that epitomizes everything this Bears team is about, all the promise and all the regret, then it is Forte's 56-yard screen at the end of the first half.

In case you've already scrubbed this game from your memory, let's refresh.

With just more than three minutes left in the half, the Bears held a 21-7 lead. On third-and-13 from their own 20, Cutler found Forte 2 yards behind the line of scrimmage with Brian de la Puente and Kyle Long clearing the road. Forte avoided one tackle with his speed, broke another with his will and darted up the right sideline with tight end Martellus Bennett racing to be his limo driver to the end zone.

Inside the Panthers' 40, though, Bennett seemed to slow up, allowing Harper to tackle Forte out of bounds at the Panthers' 24-yard line.

Time to put it away, right? Three plays later, Robbie Gould missed a 35-yard field goal.

In the ensuing two-minute drill, Cam Newton went 5-for-6 for 72 yards, culminating in a 9-yard touchdown pass to Greg Olsen -- remember him? -- that made it 21-14 at the half.

So why did Bennett whiff on the block, which he could have easily made? It wouldn't have guaranteed a score -- two other Panthers were on Forte's tail -- but it might've made the difference.

"I don't think he saw him," Forte told me after his locker room news conference. "Because [Harper] was a little bit [to the left] of Martellus and behind him a little. Obviously, if Martellus would've saw him, he would've blocked him. It's one that can go either way. If he sees him, he blocks him, you could score. If not, it's just a long gain. I would've liked to have that as a touchdown."

Bennett said he ran from the other side of the field once he saw Forte break that tackle and was "just trying to get in front of him to make a block."

"I'm running full speed and I had to look on the JumboTron to see where Matt was. I thought he was outside of him, but 41 [Harper], Matt must've slowed down a little bit, and 41 slipped behind me," Bennett said. "I'm 6-7, 280-275 [pounds]. It's hard for me to stop and turn back on a guy. I'm trying to lead the way, but I thought we ran past everybody. But we didn't. He got tackled. But it was a 99-yard gain or some [stuff] like that."

But it hurt not to get points off a play like that, right?

"Did we not score?" Bennett said, before remembering Gould's missed kick.

That play didn't lose the game, but it shows why the Bears keep losing winnable games.

As the Bears sulked back to their locker room, "Sweet Caroline" blasted through Bank of America Stadium before segueing into the DJ Khaled hit "All I Do Is Win."

These Bears do not win. They tease. They tempt. They disappoint.

But maybe next week, right?