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CHICAGO -- Brandon Marshall didn't stick around after Sunday's game to explain why he was waving his arms at Jay Cutler before hauling in his second touchdown during the Chicago Bears' 21-13 win over the Minnesota Vikings. Cutler didn't see Marshall anyway. "He was waving at me?" Cutler asked. "B acts like I don't know the formations or something. On that one, I worked to the short side [of the field] first, and Al [Alshon Jeffery] got covered up pretty good. So I just came backside, and B kind of had him posted up, and just made a heck of a play." Cutler didn't need to see Marshall waving feverishly. All the quarterback needed was to find the mismatches against Minnesota's secondary, which is precisely what Cutler did in going after the diminutive Josh Robinson for all three of his scoring strikes. At 5-feet-10, Robinson gives up six inches to the 6-feet-4 Marshall, and five to Jeffery (6-3). "We wanted to kind of go at [No.] 21," Cutler said. "We knew he was a little bit smaller. [No. 29 Xavier Rhodes has] got some length and some speed. So we wanted to put some balls up to our right side. We got a few opportunities to do it." So many that Marshall and Jeffery combined for 225 yards and three touchdowns on 18 receptions with Robinson playing the victim's role on all three scoring connections. On Jeffery's 27-yard touchdown in the second quarter, the Bears caught the Vikings in a single-high look, which means Robinson didn't have safety help over the top in coverage. Jeffery basically used his large frame to post up Robinson, bringing in the touchdown reception just before strong safety Robert Blanton made it over from the middle of the field to help. "We knew what they were going to do, and they came out and did it," Robinson said. "I need to play better and that's the biggest thing I can take from this game. You can't be in position to make plays and not make them. If you're winning on a corner, you're going to keep going back at him." That's precisely what the Bears did. Late in the second quarter, the Bears caught the Vikings in quarters coverage (the corners and safeties are each responsible for covering a quarter of the field). Knowing Marshall possessed the speed to run past Blanton, Cutler let the ball loose as soon as the receiver cleared the safety, which would leave him one-on-one deep against Robinson. The play resulted in a 44-yard touchdown with 2:49 left in the second quarter to put the Bears ahead 14-10 after the extra point. "I knew where he was going to be," Cutler said. "It was quarters, and he just split them. So I was just kind of waiting for him to get past the safety before I put it up. We didn't see that much man [coverage]. We saw a lot of three-deep, which turns into man I guess a little bit further down the field. They didn't play a ton of man on us." The score marked just the second time this season, and eighth time in their three seasons together, that Marshall and Jeffery scored touchdowns in the same game. "The most important thing is when they are one-on-one, we give them a chance to make a play," Bears coach Marc Trestman said. "All three [touchdowns] were tremendous plays. The touchdown to Brandon was in the end zone to our left and to the right, and Alshon's play was cutting off defenders. We try to put the ball in a place where they can use their body in the catch radius, and we did that today." That allowed the rest of Chicago's game to fall into place as the Bears won their first game of the season in which Cutler turned the ball over on multiple occasions. Cutler threw a pair of interceptions but expertly exploited mismatches between Minnesota's secondary and Chicago's giant receivers. Once the Bears seized a 21-10 lead on Marshall's second touchdown, the club fully unleashed the rushing attack, allowing Matt Forte to rack up 117 yards on the ground. The Bears are now 18-5 in games Forte reaches 100 yards rushing. "I would have changed up some coverages," Vikings coach Mike Zimmer said when asked if he'd do anything differently against Chicago's receivers given the opportunity. "I can't make these guys taller."
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