• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Orton, Bears freeze out Jaguars

Dec 7, 2008 - 11:47 PM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Kyle Orton and the Chicago Bears thrived on a typical December day at Soldier Field.

Orton shook off a game-time temperature of 10 degrees to throw two touchdown passes Sunday, lifting the Bears to a 23-10 victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Chicago (7-6) remained one game behind Minnesota (8-5) in the NFC North with three weeks remaining in the regular season. The Bears also became the first franchise in NFL history to win 700 games.

"It feels good to be part of a franchise that's got that many wins," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "Chicago Bears, we know what they stand for. We just hope we get to 701 quickly."

The Jaguars (4-9) were out of their element in the frigid conditions, and an early tone was set when Bears safety Danieal Manning returned an interception 42 yards to the Jaguars' 5-yard line on the game's opening possession.

"It felt good to start fast," Manning said. "We were in zone pressure defense and I cheated over and not sure that (David) Garrard saw me or not."

Orton quickly took advantage of the interception, tossing a 2-yard TD pass to tight end Desmond Clark to give the Bears the lead just 2 1/2 minutes into the contest.

Garrard and the Jaguars' offense were feeling the deep freeze on a day when the wind chill dipped to minus-one.

"Everyone has a home-field advantage," Smith added. "If you talk to teams that aren't from Chicago, believe me, they don't want to come to Chicago this time of the year to play football, but it's a part of our every-day life, so we have to play football in these conditions."

The Jaguars answered on Josh Scobee's 42-yard field goal, but they went three-and-out on their other five possessions in the first half.

Garrard completed just 4-of-11 passes for 33 yards in the first half. He played better in the second half after getting thawed out and finished 19-of-38 for 178 yards.

"It's a tough pill to swallow," Garrard said. "We really thought we were going to do it today, but we just needed to be better on offense. It starts with me and I got to make sure I play better than this."

After Robbie Gould kicked a pair of field goals, Orton hooked up with another tight end, Greg Olsen, for a 22-yard TD with 24 seconds left in the second quarter to give Chicago a 20-3 halftime lead.

Orton completed 20-of-34 passes for 219 yards, helping the Bears rebound from last week's 34-14 loss at Minnesota.

"I love playing in the cold weather and you have to embrace it," Orton said.

The Jaguars put together a 64-yard drive in the third quarter, but turned the ball over on downs after failing to convert a 2nd-and-2 from the Bears' 21-yard line.

The loss - Jacksonville's fourth straight - guaranteed the Jaguars a losing season after finishing 11-5 last year and beating Pittsburgh in the wild card round of the playoffs.

"I thought that we gave ourselves a tough situation today starting out," Jaguars coach Jack Del Rio said. "There was a turnover in the first series which allowed them to really jump out at us.

"On defense, we fought hard to try to get opportunities to get back in, and we just didn't generate anything offensively to give ourselves a chance in this football game."

Chicago did turn conservative in the second half and the Jaguars finally got into the end zone on Garrard's 4-yard TD pass to Maurice Jones-Drew with 12 minutes remaining.

Gould tacked on his third field goal, a 35-yarder three minutes later, to complete the scoring.

Chicago running back Matt Forte become just the eight player in NFL history to rush for 1,000 yards and catch 50 passes as a rookie.

"Forte played down south most of his life and he was excited to play today in short sleeves," Smith said. "He is a tough guy and the type of tailback the Chicago Bears like."