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Week 14 Game Recap: Chicago Bears 33, Cincinnati Bengals 7
What you need to know
The Chicago Bears looked like an entirely different team in Sunday’s 33-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
Mitchell Trubisky played like the franchise quarterback Bears’ fans hope he becomes. The rookie completed 25-of-32 passes for 271 yards and one touchdown and zero turnovers.
Jordan Howard bounced back after playing two weeks of seemingly disinterested football to find the end zone twice on his way to 147 yards on 23 carries.
Tarik Cohen played like the perfect compliment to Howard.
Kendall Wright played well. Rookie
Adam Shaheen played well. Aside from losing draft position, Sunday couldn’t have gone better for the Bears.
The Bears dominated the game on both sides of the ball and held an almost 2-to-1 advantage in time of possession.
Giovani Bernard was solid but the Bengals abandoned the run too early when they fell behind in the first half.
Andy Dalton peppered
A.J. Green with targets and Green came up just short of making plays on multiple occasions. Green also had a couple back-breaking mistakes, with a ball that bounced off of his facemask getting intercepted and a lost fumble along the sidelines.
Chicago Bears
| QB Mitchell Trubisky, 76 offensive snaps, Pass: 25 - 32 - 271 - 1 TD / 0 INT, Rush: 2 - 5 - 1 |
The coaching staff finally took the governor off its rookie starting quarterback.
Mitchell Trubisky led the Bears to a somewhat jarring 33-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Trubisky completed 25-of-32 passes for 271 yards and one touchdown and zero turnovers. It easily was his most complete game of the season.
Trubisky corrected many of the issues that had been plaguing him un until Sunday -- poor footwork that leads to poor accuracy and a lack of awareness in the pocket. Neither of these issues popped up in Sunday’s win as he completed 78 percent of his passes and made some confidence-laced throws on critical third downs. Potentially the best part of Sunday’s box score for Trubisky is the zero turnovers.
It’ll be difficult for Trubisky to replicate this effort against better, less-injury depleted teams. The Bengals were without a handful of starters in the defensive backfield, which allowed the Bears coaching staff to develop a more aggressive game plan. The key for Trubisky moving forward will be volume of plays. Keep an eye of total offensive plays as the season winds down.
| RB Jordan Howard, 44 offensive snaps, Rush: 23 - 147 - 2, Rec: 1 - 8 - 0 (2 targets) |
Jordan Howard took a verbal beating in his Week 13 recap. Apologies to Jordan, because he definitely did not seem disinterested in Sunday’s 33-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
Howard bounced back to find the end zone twice on his way to 147 yards on 23 carries. He still, however, cannot catch a pass. Like, it’s borderline comical to see his hands act like a backboard whenever a pass is thrown his way. PPR really doesn’t apply to Howard, FYI.
Anyway, back to Sunday … Howard got back to running inside after a few weeks that consisted of a steady dose of stretch plays in a clear attempt by the coaching staff to cater to an injury depleted interior offensive line. Howard runs best inside, not outside.
Another factor that aided Howard on Sunday was game script. The Bears took the lead early in the second quarter and never looked back.
| RB Tarik Cohen, 37 offensive snaps, Rush: 12 - 80 - 0, Rec: 2 - 5 - 0 (2 targets) |
We all know what
Tarik Cohen is capable of when on the field. Cohen provided the “lightning” to
Jordan Howard’s “thunder” in Sunday’s 33-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.
Cohen actually made the most impact in the run game this week, gaining 80 yards on 12 carries. The usually catch-first running back only was targeted twice and finished with two receptions for five yards.
Mitchell Trubisky played a more confident style of football Sunday and looked to the second-and-third levels much more frequently than usual, mostly because the Bengals were without a handful of defensive starters in the secondary.
OC Dowell Loggains drew up a great game plan for Howard and Cohen, running inside and outside, respectively. Four of Cohen’s 12 carries went 9-plus yards (19, 9, 29, 11).
Gauging by past performances, Cohen is best when he’s touching the ball between 12-15 times a game, but the coaching staff hasn’t been consistent when it comes to how and when Cohen has been used. Loggains showed us something Sunday, let’s see if he can continue to put Cohen in positions to succeed before we get too excited.
Call off the search:
Kendall Wright has been found. Wright seemingly appeared out of nowhere Sunday in Cincinnati as the Bears trounced the Bengals by the score of 33-7. Wright saw 11 targets in the win over Cincinnati, the same number of targets he saw in the three previous games. Wright’s 11 targets led to 10 receptions for 107 yards, leading the team in both categories.
Wright has played the majority of the snaps each week he’s been on the field. For one reason or another, whether it’s game script or whatever else, he tends to disappear once the game starts.
Mitchell Trubisky appeared to find a level of comfort throwing to Wright in the middle of the field.
Wright very much is a capable receiver when used properly. Everything went right for the Bears. Don’t expect this to continue. If Wright were to play every snap next week and not see a target, it really wouldn’t be that surprising.
After averaging five targets a game in his first four games as a Chicago Bear,
Dontrelle Inman didn’t see a single target in Sunday’s 33-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Somewhat shocking, yes.
Mitchell Trubisky attempted 32 passes on the day, and yet none of them went to Inman. While this is a bad thing for Inman fantasy owners, it might actually be a sign of what the Bears offense can look like with a somewhat respectable No. 1 option. Not that Inman is a No. 1; obviously he isn’t. But his mere presence on the field, in four games of film leading up to Sunday against the Bengals, might have shifted the defense’s approach to coverage to allow guys like
Kendall Wright to catch 10 passes or
Adam Shaheen to catch four passes.
Looking for a silver lining here. Inman, more than likely, will be back to his usual targets next week. Don’t fret.
| TE Adam Shaheen, 32 offensive snaps, Rec: 4 - 44 - 1 (5 targets) |
Adam Shaheen played his best game of the season in Sunday’s 33-7 win over the Cincinnati Bengals. The rookie second-round pick hasn’t seen the field much this season. The coaching staff usually only plays him during the first 15-or-so scripted plays to start a game or half, citing a lack of knowledge of the playbook Whatever that means. (HE’S A SECOND-ROUND PICK!!!! THEN DON’T DRAFT SOMEONE THIS RAW IN THE SECOND ROUND).
Anywho … Shaheen caught 4-of-5 targets for 44 yards and a touchdown.
Mitchell Trubisky and Shaheen look to be developing a nice chemistry, evidenced by the rookie quarterback’s trust in the rookie tight end on third downs and inside the red zone.
Shaheen, more or less, is a possession tight end. While it’s certainly fun to watch this kid develop, he might be an offseason away from being fantasy viable on a weekly basis.
Cincinnati Bengals
| QB Andy Dalton, 45 offensive snaps, Pass: 14 - 29 - 141 - 1 TD / 1 INT |
Dalton got off to a decent start, hitting
Brandon LaFell for a 14-yard touchdown on an out route along the sideline to give the Bengals the lead in the first quarter. While Dalton had taken care of the ball well and went over a month without an interception, he made a number of dangerous throws into coverage that should have been picked off against the Bears. On separate throws to
A.J. Green and
Tyler Boyd, the receivers had to play the role of defensive back and knock the ball away from defenders who were in position for the interception. One of Dalton’s longest completions of the day was another pass that should have been intercepted. The cornerback stepped in front of the pass for a potential pick six and had it ricochet off of his chest into the air where Green hauled it in and turned up field for a nice gain. Dalton’s luck eventually wore out. Trying to squeeze it into double coverage to Green, the ball hit Green in the facemask and popped into the air where it was intercepted. With the Bengals getting destroyed, Dalton was pulled midway through the fourth quarter for
A.J. McCarron.
| QB A.J. McCarron, 9 offensive snaps, Pass: 4 - 8 - 47 - 0 TD / 0 INT |
With the game out of hand late,
Andy Dalton and
A.J. Green were pulled and McCarron was brought in for a short audition. He didn’t look any better than Dalton. He completed a pair of short passes to
Giovani Bernard that went for gains of 27 and 19 yards against prevent defense. Aside from a 4-yard completion to
Brandon LaFell, McCarron couldn’t get anything going except dump offs to the running backs. He took a sack and turned it over on downs.
| RB Giovani Bernard, 46 offensive snaps, Rush: 11 - 62 - 0, Rec: 6 - 68 - 0 (8 targets) |
The Bengals came out with a pass-heavy game plan and mostly ignored Bernard on the first two drives. The plan didn’t work. On the third drive, the Bengals featured Bernard heavily and he ripped off 32 yards on 3 carries to help setup the only offensive score of the day for Cincinnati. Bernard ran fairly well early but the Bengals passing game wasn’t able to convert and keep drives alive and the team quickly fell into a big hole. Bernard did much of his damage in garbage time, picking up big chunks on short passes against prevent coverage.
| WR A.J. Green, 43 offensive snaps, Rec: 5 - 64 - 0 (12 targets) |
Green had an awful game. The Bengals came out focused upon getting the ball to him early and often and Green came up just short of making the play on a number of well thrown deep balls. He wasn’t able to hang on as he was going out of bounds on a deep back-shoulder fade. On a deep go route, he had a step on his defender but let the ball bounce off of his shoulder pad. On another deep go route, he was only able to get one hand on the all and couldn’t pull it in. His biggest gain of the day actually came on a tipped ball that should have been intercepted. Green’s struggles continued into the second half and were one of the primary causes of the Bengals meltdown. With the Bengals down two scores, Green was responsible for back-to-back turnovers that sealed the loss. He had a pass over the middle bounce off of his face mask when he didn’t get his hands up in time intercepted. The next drive, he made a nice catch along the sideline for 20 yards but had it ripped out of his hands just before he stepped out of bounds for the Bengals second turnover of the game. Green was pulled along with Dalton for the final two drives of the game.
LaFell scored a 14-yard touchdown on a nice play design. He lined up in the slot with two receivers stacked outside of him. One faked a screen while the other ran a slant that picked LaFell’s defender and allowed him to get wide open on an out route to the corner of the end zone.
| WR Tyler Boyd, 30 offensive snaps, Rec: 1 - 15 - 0 (4 targets) |
Boyd has worked his way back up the depth chart to #3 wide receiver but hasn’t done much of note. He had a drop and wasn’t on the same page as Dalton on a timing route to the outside.
