Bears still a work in progress

OAKLAND Calif. No one calls for an encore presentation of a dress rehearsal but Marc Trestman's new offense in the Bears' third exhibition would be worth seeing again.

Concerns about slow starts that plagued the unit through training camp and the first two exhibitions were eased when the Bears put together five scoring drives for 27 points in the first half of Friday night's 34 26 victory over the Raiders at O.co Coliseum.

It was most points the Bears had scored in the first half of a third exhibition game when the starters get the most significant playing time since they put 31 on the 49ers in 2007. The problem was the offense fizzled to start that season and quarterback Rex Grossman was benched quickly in favor of Kyle Orton.

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The Bears say they cracked open Trestman's playbook just slightly enough to attack an opposing defense with a game plan. Jay Cutler completed 12 of 21 passes for 142 yards in the first half targeting seven receivers and revealing elements of the play action passing game. His numbers would have been more impressive if there had not been as many as six drops.

Trestman already has said Cutler will not play Thursday night against the Browns at Soldier Field and it's a fair bet many key starters will be rested.

So this new offense is ready for the Bengals in the season opener Sept. 8 right

We have two weeks to get ready for them tight end Martellus Bennett said. We're not ready for them yet.

We still haven't run all of our stuff and you don't want to show too much in preseason so we were in our basic package. Those were basic plays.

Beating the Bengals at Soldier Field won't be as easy as dropping the Raiders. The Raiders have a full blown quarterback crisis and look like they will get in the early running for the No. 1 overall draft pick in 2014. They are undermanned on both sides of the ball.

But the Bears still had to execute and they did so particularly on the offensive line as Cutler had a mostly clean pocket. Mixing in some runs to Matt Forte who gained 76 yards on six carries Cutler moved the ball through the air with Alshon Jeffery who made seven catches for 77 yards. Forte who has run for 149 yards on 15 attempts in preseason also scored on a 32 yard swing pass thanks to aggressive downfield blocks from Bennett and Jeffery.

Before the starters were pulled at halftime they had rolled up 252 yards and 14 first downs on the Raiders totals that again would have been higher if it had not been for a slew of drops by Brandon Marshall Bennett and Fendi Onobun.

We have to come out and play like that every game Forte said. Just because we had a couple of big plays and a couple of nice runs we (can't) get all out of control like we've arrived as an offense. We still have a lot of work to do.

The Bears return to practice Monday at Halas Hall and the starters will treat the two practices before the Browns game as if they will be playing.

Remember Cutler said in the spring it takes three years to master a scheme completely and he and his teammates haven't skipped any phases in the process. There will be rough spots in the season but it looks like the offense is capable of significant progress from a year ago. That kind of improvement was only an idea during the Lovie Smith era.

We did some things that we wanted to do left tackle Jermon Bushrod said. We opened up our playbook a little more. This is encouraging but you're only as good as the next time you step on the field.

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