Bears rally late on to clinch opening game win.
The Chicago Bears got their season off to a winning start with a hard-fought 24-21 win over the Cincinnati Bengals at Soldier Field on Sunday.
Having made a number of changes in the offseason, it wasn’t quite the comprehensive start to the campaign that coach Marc Trestman would have wanted, but nevertheless he will be pleased with the effort shown by his players in securing the win.
With Brian Urlacher departing and Trestman replacing Lovie Smith as head coach, the Bears have placed a strong emphasis on offense as they look to reach the playoffs after missing out on five of the past six occasions.
The Bengals led by 11 in the third quarter and were up 21-17 early in the fourth, but Jay Cutler found Brandon Marshall for the go-ahead touchdown with 7:58 remaining to ensure Trestman registered his first win as an NFL head coach at the first time of asking.
“There were a lot of question marks,” Cutler said as quoted by ESPN.
“How were we going to do on offense? Are the plays going to work? Are we going to be able to block them? Am I going to complete balls? So to go out there, it wasn’t pretty, it wasn’t perfect, we didn’t think it was going to be. We made plays when we had to make plays.”
Cutler ended the game throwing for 242 yards, while Marshall had eight catches for 104 yards as the Bears also had Matt Forte to thank for a solid performance.
They will now be hoping to build on the victory, and take confidence from their ability to successfully carry out plays under pressure having now notched up their first win of the season.
COMMENTS