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CINCINNATI -- The Cincinnati Bengals' injury-ravaged secondary provided Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky with the opportunity to take a few more calculated risks in the vertical passing attack. "Sure, it's fair to say" that the Bears were more aggressive on offense, Trubisky said Sunday after a 33-7 victory. "Everyone's got opinions ... it's accurate." The Bears will never truly deviate from their conservative offensive approach with their current group of coaches and players, but Trubisky wasn't drafted second overall to check down on every play.  Trubisky started off throwing low-risk, short passes against Cincinnati, but as the afternoon wore on, the rookie quarterback started looking for guys such as Kendall Wright and Adam Shaheen on intermediate routes that paid big dividends on third down.
Because of their slightly more aggressive attitude on offense -- coupled with Jordan Howard's 147 rushing yards and two touchdowns -- the Bears finished with 33 points, 29 first downs and 482 total net yards. To put that in perspective, the Bears hadn't scored 30-plus points in 35 consecutive games -- the second-longest active streak behind only the 0-13 Cleveland Browns. "Yeah, we just need to spread the ball around," Trubisky said. "We've got a lot of great weapons on offense. Adam, Dion [Sims] -- they're big tight ends, and we've just got to continue to utilize them and spread the ball around with our receivers. It all starts when we get the running game going, and the whole line was really playing well up front. "We were really just focused today. We put the past behind us and [focused on] one drive at a time. We had a great week of practice, and I feel like that just trickled [down] throughout the week [with] positive energy. The guys just came together, and we were able to make a lot of plays today. We weren't going to dwell on the past and what we didn't do. We can learn from our mistakes, and it allowed us to be more effective today." It also helped that Trubisky's receivers made plays on the ball. Wright, in particular, ended the afternoon with a season-high 10 catches for 107 yards on 11 targets. "Our group of receivers pride ourselves in getting open," Wright said. "We call ourselves '7-Eleven' because we're always open." Wright probably was joking. Anyone who has watched the Bears this year knows what a struggle it has been for the wide receivers. There isn't a single one on the roster with 50 catches -- Wright leads the team with 43 -- and there are only three weeks left in the regular season. One of the Bears' first orders of business in the offseason -- after whatever coaching changes have to be made -- is to overhaul the wide receiver position. For now, the current group has to do. While it would be nice for Bears receivers to be open 24/7 -- as Wright suggested -- over the final three weeks, the reality is that Trubisky just needs the wideouts to work bankers' hours for him to keep developing.
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