Brandon LaFell scored the Bengals' only touchdown on Sunday.

-What transpired Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium just hasn't happened very often in the 15 seasons Marvin Lewis has head coached the Bengals.  When the mushroom cloud began to dissipate over the Bears' 33-7 victory, it was just the 12th time in his 244 games one of his clubs has been whacked by at least 26 points and only the fourth time at home,

And it's happened less even since wide receiver A.J. Green and quarterback Andy Dalton arrived in 2011. It's the worst Paul Brown Stadium loss for them and just the fifth time they've been hit that hard since October of 2014 and a 43-17 Patriotic win in Foxboro.

Lewis immediately dismissed a lack of effort as a reason, although safety George Iloka said the headline should be "lack of execution, lack of effort."

"I felt like guys were bringing effort today, we just got our butts kicked," Green said.

Dalton, who had a nice little run going in the last six games with 11 TDs and no picks for a 104.4 passer rating, was nowhere near that crispness with a 59.7 rating that came out of nowhere.

 "It wasn't good," Dalton said. "We just didn't have that much energy and we didn't have anything that gave us that spark. That's just how it went today."

 The  prime suspects  were a hangover from Monday night's last-snap loss that bruised the psyche with a blown 17-point lead against the Steelers and the injury list that cost them four starters and limped up a couple of others.

Nobody would bite on that, but they were clearly embarrassed.

  "It's embarrassing to do this at home. We didn't defend our home field, and that's something we take pride in," said left end Carlos Dunlap.   "We didn't defend home field. We had fans here; I had a lot of family here. It was embarrassing to put that up there and come out like that. It's not what I expected."

Green agreed.

   "It's definitely embarrassing," he said. "Any time you lose 33-7, no matter how good the other team played, it's embarrassing. We have three more weeks left, and we have to continue fighting."

But as for a Monday night hangover, he wasn't budging.

"I wouldn't say a hangover," Green said. "It's a tough game to come back from but we don't make any excuses."

_ Green, who has struggled since he had a 61-yard touchdown pass taken away Monday night in the third quarter on a holding call, found himself in the middle of the Bengals' two turnovers in the second half. Dalton's string of 193 straight completions without an interception was snapped with 3:15 left in the third quarter when he tried to hit Dalton over the middle. The ball appeared to hit his hands and deflect into the arms of safety Eddie Jackson at the Bengals 43.

Then early in the fourth quarter with the Bears backing up in a 26-7 lead, Green got loose for an 18-yarder and then caught a juggling 20-yarder on the sideline and pulled it in. But Jackson ripped it out of his arms before he went out-of-bounds at the Bears 20 and recovered the fumble.

Bears head coach John Fox won the challenge, but Green indicated he thought he was safely out. He also said on the interception the ball was tipped, making it a tough play.

It changed direction. It's tough," Green said. "Any great receiver will have patches.  This has been a strange season. I feel like my focus is there, but things just happen."

Strange indeed. Green is 50 yards shy of his sixth 1,000-yard season and is on pace for 1,169 yards, which would be the fewest he's had in a season he's played at least 15 games since he was a rookie.

"I have to pick my game up," Green said. "I played like (bleep) tody."

-Pro Bowl defensive tackle Geno Atkins didn't start for the first time in 60 straight games (rookie Ryan Glasgow got the call), indicating that toe injury is serious enough. He did play on passing downs early in the game, but then didn't play at all. Lewis said he's not sure if the foot got sore, but indications were it was because the Bears had things so well in hand with the lead and down and distance that there were no such things as passing downs and they cut back hos snaps.

Even though Atkins came in hurting, they deactivated rookie nose tackle Josh Tupou. They brought in backup guard Alex Redmond on goal-line situations in Redmond's second NFL game and first since the fourth week.

-More tough trends. For the seventh time this season the Bengals didn't score a touchdown in the second half and for the fourth time they didn't score a point in the second half. When Mike Nugent hit a field goal with 1:46 left in the first half. it was the eighth field goal in the last eight games the Bengals have given up in the last two minutes of the half. With foes scoring 84 points in the fourth quarter, the Bengals have 71 second-half points and are on pace to score 278 points, one less than the 2-14 team in 2002.