Created: Monday, October 26, 2009 1:15 a.m. CST
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Bengals’ Ochocinco walks the walk

By TOM MUSICK - tmusick@nwherald.com
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CINCINNATI – Bengals receiver Chad Ochocinco delivered on his promise to dance the samba Sunday.

Ochocinco, 31, racked up
10 catches for 118 yards and two touchdowns against Bears cornerback Charles Tillman en route to a 45-10 blowout. The Bears placed little pressure on Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer, who threw five touchdown passes and posted a career-best 146.7 passer rating.

Tillman placed the blame squarely on himself after Ochocinco’s attention-grabbing day.

“He did a couple of things on a couple of plays that I had never seen,” Tillman said. “He made a lot of double moves on his pass routes. He had a good game. I tip my hat to him.”

Tillman was not the only Bears defender who had trouble with pass routes. Zackary Bowman was beat on the Bengals’ first touchdown of the game, and linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer could not prevent a 3-yard touchdown pass to tight end J.P. Foschi that made it 21-0 early in the second quarter.

Shooting themselves: Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner was forced to abandon his game plan and rely almost completely on the passing game as the Bengals built a 31-point lead before halftime.

After the game, Turner said things started to go wrong from the Bears on the first play from scrimmage. Right tackle Chris Williams jumped before the snap to set an ominous tone for the offense.

“We started again with the false starts,” Turner said. “We talked about that all week and really worked hard on that all week and said we can’t hurt ourselves. ‘Give ourselves a chance on every play.’ We start the very first play of the game with a false start, and it didn’t get a whole lot better from there.”

No excuse: The Bears played without injured defenders Tommie Harris and Pisa Tinoisamoa to go along with Brian Urlacher, but players were in no mood for excuses after the blowout.

“We’ve played without Brian all year,” Hillenmeyer said. “Pisa’s played less than a half of total football. So to blame it on the fact that we’re missing guys is letting ourselves off the hook.”

Bears bits: Devin Hester became the first Bears receiver this season to notch 100 receiving yards in a game. … The Bears did not register a sack for the second consecutive game. … Backup quarterback Caleb Hanie completed one pass for three yards late in the fourth quarter.

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