The Bears played their starters for the first half Saturday.
Not that you could tell.
When they jogged into the locker room after 30 minutes of a game the Bears would lose 21-10, things couldn’t have looked much worse.
Down 21-3 at halftime, the Bears’ starting defense had allowed two Bengals quarterbacks to go 12-for-12 for 139 yards, not counting a 43-yard pass wiped out by a penalty.
Nose tackles Jeremiah Ratliff (ankle) and Eddie Goldman (concussion) had left the game because of injury.
And, although quarterback Jay Cutler had completed 12-of-15 attempts for 90 yards, he had failed to lead the team to a touchdown — continuing a three-game trend for the starters.
Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton suffered a neck injury when diving in for a fourth-down, 1-yard touchdown, capping a 16-play, 77-yard drive to give the Bengals a 7-0 lead in the first quarter.
Backup A.J. McCarron didn’t throw an interception until he lobbed the ball out of bounds on the first drive of the third quarter.
In the second quarter, he threw a 31-yard pass to Marvin Jones to cap a 71-yard drive; on the next drive, he handed the ball to Jeremy Hill for a 1-yard score.
Cutler finished 13-for-17 for 98 passing yards, taking two sacks. Martellus Bennett led the Bears with seven catches for 45 yards.
The Bears scored their lone touchdown midway through the fourth quarter when rookie receiver Ify Umodu blocked a punt, recovered it and ran it eight yards for a score.
As expected, the Bears played without injured receivers Alshon Jeffery (calf), Eddie Royal (hip) and Marquess Wilson (hamstring).