CHICAGO ? This is what the Bears expected when they hired offensive coordinator Mike Martz. Not the team that ran as much as it passed the final nine games last year. The team that ripped off pass plays of 23, 23, 25 and 56 yards in the first quarter alone Sunday.
Not only were they big gains; they came with a minimum of effort, many of them off short screen passes as Jay Cutler threw for 312 yards in a 30-12 season-opening rout of the Atlanta Falcons.
?I?d take that all day if I can dump it two yards and you do the rest,? receiver Roy Williams said.
Cutler had more yards passing after the first drive of the third quarter (276) than he had in any of his final nine games last year. And he should have had more. He messed up one of Martz?s best calls when he rolled right and threw back left to tight end Kellen Davis, who was all alone. But Cutler overthrew him. Instead of an 8-yard touchdown, the Bears settled for a field goal and a 16-3 halftime lead.
?You?ve got to make those count,? Cutler said. ?It?s too great of a play to just miss it.?
The question is how much this win counts.
Steamrolling a team that was the No. 1 seed in the NFC playoffs last year should mean a lot.
But Atlanta played so poorly it was difficult to put too much stock into anything Chicago did.
?We didn?t play well in any phase,? Falcons coach Mike Smith said.
For instance, on Matt Forte?s 56-yard screen pass for a touchdown, linebacker Sean Weatherspoon didn?t even try to tackle Forte. He settled for a shove that Forte easily shrugged off.
?There?s no excuse for doing stuff like that,? Atlanta safety William Moore said.
Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan also fumbled without being touched. Julius Peppers fell on the ball but let it squirt away.
No matter; Brian Urlacher scooped it up for an easy 11-yard touchdown and a 30-6 lead.
?Once I missed it, Brian picked it up and scored,? Peppers said. ?That was the best possible scenario that could have happened.?
Most of the game was one best-possible scenario after another for the Bears, including a pair of semi-shanked punts that bumped and rolled for more than 50 yards.
But not all was Atlanta?s incompetence. The Bears made plays, too, whether it was Charles Tillman poking out his 25th career fumble or Urlacher making a spectacular full-length diving interception.
And those are plays the Bears can count on repeating. Peppers, who had two sacks, wasn?t impressed by Urlacher?s interception, fumble return and 10 tackles.
?That?s what he does,? Peppers said. ?That?s why he is Urlacher. It?s nothing new I saw today that I haven?t seen already.?
The Falcons weren?t the Falcons on Sunday.
?What you saw today,? Atlanta?s Smith said, ?was not up to our standards. ... (But) let?s not be saying that the sky is falling or the buildings are crumbling.?
The Bears hit all their standards. But it?s too soon to say whether they feasted on the kindness of a crumbling stranger Sunday or whether they really have finally gotten the hang of a Mike Martz offense.
?We know there are going to be games that are tough,? Roy Williams said. ?It?s not always going to be so easy. That?s going to show who we really are.?
Assistant sports editor Matt Trowbridge can be reached at: 815-987-1383, mtrowbridge@rrstar.com.
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