Chicago – The Cincinnati Bengals picked up the habit of bumbling starts after 1990, the most recent time they started 3-0 and made the playoffs. On Sunday, they broke it – with a 24-7 victory over the Chicago Bears.
Cincinnati, which entered the game with a league-leading 10 takeaways, picked off Chicago Bears quarterback Kyle Orton five times and the Bengals became the first NFL team in 34 years to intercept five passes in consecutive games.
The Bengals’ fast start doesn’t satisfy Carson Palmer.
“Three games is nothing when you play a 16-game season,” the Bengals’ quarterback said. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to be 3-0 and have this start. But we still have a lot of games – a lot of big games – ahead of us and a lot of really good teams.”
Madieu Williams, Keiwan Ratliff, Brian Simmons and former Broncos Tory James and Deltha O’Neal intercepted Orton. The Bengals intercepted Daunte Culpepper five times in last week’s 37-8 victory over Minnesota; the 1971 Cleveland Browns were the previous team to pick off five in back-to-back games.
Palmer was 16-of-23 for 169 yards and three touchdowns, two of them to Chad Johnson, and did not throw an interception against a Bears defense that picked off Detroit’s Joey Harrington five times last week.
Rudi Johnson rushed for 84 yards on 25 carries.
“It’s big,” Simmons said of the 3-0 start. “You get off and you’re not behind the eight-ball. The last two years, we’ve been putting ourselves behind the eight-ball.”
Chicago’s Thomas Jones rushed for 106 yards and scored the Bears’ lone touchdown on a 2-yard run in the fourth quarter, after a 139-yard performance in last week’s 38-6 rout of Detroit.
Orton, who had thrown only one interception in the first two weeks, looked flustered, completing just 17-of-39 passes for 149 yards. He was the first Bear to throw five interceptions since Larry Rakestraw at Detroit in September 1968.
The Bears were still in it – down 10-0 five minutes into in the third quarter – before Orton was intercepted a fifth time.
That’s when O’Neal picked off a pass intended for Muhsin Muhammad. It was the fourth interception of the season for O’Neal, who entered the game tied with Chicago’s Nathan Vasher for the league lead.
Palmer then took advantage, driving his team 70 yards and finishing with a 36-yard touchdown pass to Chris Henry.
“I didn’t play well,” Orton said. “I didn’t make good decisions. You can’t play like that and turn the ball over five times and expect to win a game.”
