Orton savors day with lots of air time

CHICAGO - Kyle Orton enjoyed winging the football around when he played at Purdue, where he finished his career with the fourth-most passing yards in Big Ten history. Sunday's game against Minnesota sort of reminded Orton of those days, when he went 21-for-32 for 283 yards and two touchdowns in Chicago's 48-41 victory over the Vikings.

Orton started fast, completing four of four passes on Chicago's opening possession and hitting tight end Greg Olsen on an 18-yard touchdown pass to tie the score 7-7. He finished strong, too, throwing a 51-yard scoring pass to Marty Booker for a 41-31 lead late in the third quarter.

Orton was asked if the game had a similar feel to his college days.

"A little bit, out there throwing the ball a bunch," Orton said. "It was fun. It was really fun out there against a good defense."

As Orton continues to excel, the Bears are finding that their passing game is the way to go. Taking into account negative yardage, they had a total of 53 yards rushing against the Vikings. Rookie running back Matt Forte gained 56 yards on 20 carries and scored a touchdown.

"It doesn't matter really how we score," Orton said. "Today it happened to be through the air. We've got a bunch of guys out there who make plays. We go in trying to score as many points as we can."

The Bears did just that, scoring their most points since a 48-14 rout of Tampa Bay in 1986.

Orton has thrown for 10 TDs in his past five games and has not had an interception in his past three.

"He's making great decisions," Bears coach Lovie Smith said. "We always expect big things from him."

Although the Bears offense had help with two bizarre special teams touchdowns Sunday, in the end it held off a Vikings team that fought back to tie the score three times and then provided Chicago's defense with a cushion.

The Bears went with a no-huddle and shotgun offense for a good part of the game, which was a key in all but one of their offensive scoring drives.

"Getting that up-tempo offense going gets us into a good rhythm," said Olsen, who caught six passes for 74 yards.

The Bears offense also was helped by the Vikings' strategy of kicking short with dangerous Devin Hester as the return man. Chicago started no worse than its own 41-yard line following Vikings kickoffs in the first half. The Bears scored 13 points on three drives that started with good field position.

"With a return man of his caliber, you know you're going to get a lot of funky kicks," said the Bears' Jason McKie, who had two returns for 38 yards. "We work on it in practice all the time. When you start at midfield, the defense can't key on one thing. They have to be ready for the run or pass."

It also made Orton's job a lot easier.

"They kicked short and we had good field position," Orton said. "It worked out well for us today. It was nice getting the ball up there at the 40."