Every phase clicks for Bears against hapless Rams

ST. LOUIS - The St. Louis Rams were the cure-all for everything that has ailed the Bears the past two weeks.

Anemic pass rush?

The Bears racked up a season-high 5 sacks.

Inconsistent run defense coming off its worst effort of the season?

The Rams had more rushing attempts than rushing yards.

One of the league's worst pass defenses?

The Bears picked off 4 passes and held the Rams' quarterbacks to a combined passer rating of 33.8.

Slumping run game?

The Bears rolled up a season-best 201 yards on the ground.

The ridiculously easy 27-3 victory over the hapless and helpless 2-9 Rams elevated the Bears to 6-5 and allowed them to keep pace in the NFC North with the Vikings, who also improved to 6-5 by defeating the Jaguars. The 5-5 Packers can keep it a three-way first-place tie with a win tonight in New Orleans against the Saints.

Coach Lovie Smith preached all week leading up to Sunday's game that the Bears were looking at a six-game season starting with a 0-0 record, the same as the Vikings and Packers. So far, the Bears are undefeated, but they're already looking ahead to Sunday's game at Minnesota.

"It's our new season," said middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, who had an interception for the second straight game. "We're as good as we can be right now. We're 1-0 in our new season. We've got a big game against Minnesota (Sunday), but we got off to a good start."

And, after 2 straight losses, the Bears were happy to accept a gift from the NFL schedule-makers to get their Playoff Express up and running.

The pass rush that had been missing for more than a month finally reappeared. The 5 sacks were as many as they had in the five previous games ... combined. Left end Adewale Ogunleye and left tackle Tommie Harris, who had combined for just 41/2 sacks in the first 10 games, had 2 each against the Rams.

"We did our job today as a defensive line," said right end Alex Brown, who accounted for the other sack. "That's what we need to do for the next five games. We're going to take a little bit of confidence from this, but we've got to understand that the team we're going to play next week is much better. They've got a heck of a back (Adrian Peterson) and they've got a pretty darn good offensive line, and they've got a great defense over there, too."

The Bears' relentless pass rush allowed the defense to focus on stopping the run without being strafed by aerial attacks that had plagued the defense more often than not in the first 10 games. It worked - they allowed 193 passing yards, their lowest yield in six weeks.

And the Rams struggled to get to the line of scrimmage all day on the ground, picking up just 14 yards on 19 attempts. All four starting defensive linemen - Ogunleye, Harris, Brown and Dusty Dvoracek - had 2 tackles for loss, as did Urlacher. Lance Briggs picked off 2 passes for the first time in his career.

"We had six games to get ourselves into the playoffs," Briggs said. "To come in and be as productive as we were today, we needed a game like this going into another (division) game with Minnesota. It's good confidence. It's what we needed to do."

The Bears wasted no time establishing their dominance over a team that has been dominated frequently, losing games by 35, 28, 24, 17, 21, 44 and 19 points already this season.

Danieal Manning returned the opening kickoff 50 yards, Devin Hester picked up 20 on a reverse and two plays later Matt Forte scored the first of his 2 touchdowns on a 13-yard run for a 7-0 lead with just 1:55 elapsed.

That was more than enough offense considering eight of the Rams' 12 plays in the first quarter were for negative yardage, and they ended the first quarter with minus-16 yards in total offense.

The Rams were without their best player, running back Steven Jackson, and two starting offensive linemen - left tackle Orlando Pace and center Nick Leckey - who suffered an ankle injury in pregame warmups. Starting quarterback Marc Bulger left with a concussion following a sack by Ogunleye.

Bears quarterback Kyle Orton, who was more mobile in his second game back after missing one game with a sprained ankle, was rarely hassled. He completed 18 of 29 passes for just 139 yards but was sacked just once and played his sixth straight game without an interception to finish with an 85.3 passer rating. With Forte rushing for a career-best 132 yards on 20 carries, the Bears didn't need much more. Rediscovering the running attack with three games coming up at Soldier Field in December was important.

"We did a great job running the ball," Orton said. "When you get to November, you've got to run it. We were able to that, and the defense came up with some big turnovers for us."

The Bears made it look easy - thanks to the Rams.

<div class="infoBox"> <h1>More Coverage</h1> <div class="infoBoxContent"> <div class="infoArea"> <h2>Stories</h2> <ul class="links"> <li><a href="/story/?id=253208">Briggs comes up big <span class="date">[11/24/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=253252">This guy's a rookie?<span class="date">[11/24/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=253195">Imrem: Turnabout is fair play in the NFL <span class="date">[11/24/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=253204">Imrem: Hester and Manning produce after Devin intervention <span class="date">[11/24/08]</span></a></li> <li><a href="/story/?id=253197">How they scored <span class="date">[11/24/08]</span></a></li> </ul> <h2>Photo Galleries</h2> <ul class="gallery"> <li><a href="/story/?id=253174">Bears vs. Rams photo gallery <span class="date">[11/24/08]</span></a></li> </ul> </div> </div> </div>