CHICAGO — You can either get mad or get back to work, and Jack Del Rio wasn’t mad.

Not too long after the Raiders’ frustrating 22-20 loss to the Bears here, Del Rio emerged from the locker room and kept himself totally under control.

Remarkably under control. Maybe even defiantly under control.

“Tough, determined effort,” Del Rio said flatly. “Just came up a little short.

“We came in, we played very hard, very gritty, we just didn’t make enough plays at the end.”

OK, Del Rio probably was a little fidgety inside, especially when local reporters were late getting to his postgame presser because of some labyrinthine Soldier Field tunnel logistics. (Oops!) But once we got there and started asking questions about this huge missed opportunity, the turnovers, the struggling offense, and the conservative play-calls at the end, Del Rio kept it cool, clinical and reasoned.

The Raiders lost a game most of us thought they should win, and I would assume Del Rio and his players were in that “assume” category.

For a team that had just won two games to get to 2-1 and needs every bit of momentum it can gain heading into Sunday’s game against division kingpin Denver, dropping to 2-2 was a step backward by any definition.

For a franchise that is dying to resurface as a relevant NFL participant, losing to the rebuilding Bears was a gut shot.

But Del Rio went out of his way to downplay any possible larger significance to Sunday’s result, and his players eagerly followed his public lead.

They wanted to put this in a larger perspective: One step back after two steps forward but still probably a 2015 net gain if they can just get back to work.

“It’s a loss — they’re all hard to swallow, but it is what it is,” safety Charles Woodson said. “We’ve got a tough game coming up. We can’t really dwell on this one too long.

“We’re fighting. That’s really what it’s all about. We’ve got guys on this team that are fighting.”

There were two points about Sunday, I think, from a larger Raider viewpoint:

And the Raiders defense is still vulnerable against good quarterbacks, including Chicago’s Jay Cutler.

This means the Raiders, even as they fight and show promise behind Derek Carr, Amari Cooper and Khalil Mack, can still lose to almost anybody, which they did Sunday.

He did that after the Week 1 debacle at home against Cincinnati, the Raiders stayed calm, then beat Baltimore and Cleveland in consecutive weeks.

Del Rio did it again Sunday, and we’ll see what happens against Denver at the Coliseum.

The immediate result was that his players all said they were disappointed but not at all broken by this loss.

“This was just one of those old-fashioned NFL fights down to the wire,” Carr said.

“There was no lack of focus or lack of effort — nothing that would alarm you or anything like that. It came down to the end, and they made great plays.”

Chicago’s defense isn’t amazingly talented, but former 49ers coordinator Vic Fangio drew up a scheme that bottled up the Raiders run game and forced Carr to make a lot of very tricky throws.

Chicago’s offense lacks super talent, but Cutler came back from a hamstring injury and threw some lasers to open receivers.

So … Was this a chance for the Raiders to show the world that they’re a serious team again? Yes, it was.

But the Raiders’ intent this season is to win every game they can, not just the ones we all think they’re supposed to.

“I didn’t know if we were favored or not,” tackle Donald Penn said. “We’re trying to get better; we’re trying to change the culture.

“We’re tired of hearing ‘same old Raiders.’ That’s our whole thing we’re doing. Each week out we’re trying to show this is a new team and we’re better.

“Today it slipped through our fingers. I’m glad it happened early, and it’s a great learning experience for our young team.”

They went backward on Sunday, after a few weeks of forward progress; next weekend against Denver, the Raiders will have another chance to send themselves in the correct direction again.

And if they do, Jack Del Rio will be calm and collected and ready to move on — just as he was Sunday, when somebody else might have been raging at the universe.

Read Tim Kawakami’s Talking Points blog at . Contact him at or 408-920-5442. Follow him on Twitter at .