CINCINNATI – Lance Briggs stood in the corner of a stunned and subdued Bears locker room Sunday in Cincinnati, searching for words to describe the most lopsided loss in Lovie Smith’s six seasons as coach.

“Everything that they did worked. Nothing that we did was effective,” the Pro Bowl linebacker said quietly after a disastrous 45-10 defeat to the Bengals at Paul Brown Stadium. “We didn’t do anything well. It’s hard for a guy like myself as a captain of this team to be a part of this.”

Hunter Hillenmeyer tackles ex-Bears running back Cedric Benson in Sunday's 45-10 loss to the Bengals.

The Bears were dominated from the outset. The Bengals scored six touchdowns and a field goal on their first seven possessions stretching into the fourth quarter, marching up and down the field at will. Cincinnati led 14-0 after the first period, 31-3 at halftime and 38-3 after the third quarter.

Quarterback Carson Palmer threw touchdown passes on the Bengals’ first four possessions—the first three to wide-open receivers—and threw for a fifth score before exiting early in the fourth quarter.

Former Bears running back Cedric Benson devoured the hand that once fed him, rushing for a career-high 189 yards and 1 TD on 37 carries. As a team, the Bengals gained 448 total yards, converted 8 of 12 third-down opportunities, compiled 30 first downs and possessed the ball for 36:22.

“The Chicago Bears should never lose a football game like that,” Smith said. “[It was a] tough day at the office for us. Nothing went right. [It was] disappointing the way our defense played. We knew we were playing a good offense, but we should be able to hold them down a lot better than that.”

Palmer capped drives of 77, 80, 63 and 66 yards with TD passes of 9 yards to Chris Henry, 8 yards to Chad Ochocinco, 3 yards to J.P. Foschi and 8 yards to Laveranues Coles. Cincinnati’s fifth possession culminated in Shayne Graham’s 29-yard field goal, making  the score 31-0 with 1:10 left in the half.

The only times the Bears have permitted more than 31 points in the first half was when they surrendered 34 in a 1958 loss to the Baltimore Colts and 33 in a 2003 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers.

“They dominated us,” Briggs said. “It’s as simple as that. They kicked our [butt].”

The Bears offense wasn’t much better than the defense. The unit committed four turnovers on five possessions in the second and third quarters, leading to 24 Cincinnati points. Jay Cutler threw three interceptions and Devin Hester lost a fumble when he was stripped following a 15-yard reception.

“Anytime that happens to a team, it tells us offensively that we’ve got a lot of work to do,” said Cutler, who completed 26 of 37 passes for 251 yards with 1 TD and a 64.1 passer rating. “We can’t put our defense in that situation. We’ve got to answer back, and that’s on me and the rest of the offense.”

Robbie Gould’s 22-yard field goal on the final play of the first half cut the deficit to 31-3. But the Bengals (5-2) picked up where they had left off. Cincinnati widened the margin midway through the third quarter to 38-3 on Palmer’s 13-yard TD pass to Ochocinco (10 receptions for 118 yards)—who celebrated with a samba dance as promised.

Benson’s 1-yard scoring run later made it 45-3 on the first play of the fourth quarter before Cutler provided the game’s final points three minutes later with a 5-yard TD pass to Hester.

Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer completed 20 of 24 passes for 233 yards and 5 TDs Sunday.

The Bears didn’t force the Bengals to punt until midway through the fourth quarter—and they promptly ran into punter Kevin Huber on fourth-and-four, drawing a five-yard penalty that gave Cincinnati a first down.

It was that kind of day for the Bears (3-3), who lost their second straight game to fall into third place in the NFC North behind the Vikings (6-1) and Packers (4-2).

“You have to give [the Bengals] a lot of credit for the way they played,” Smith said. “They were ready to go. I didn’t have my team ready to go this week. But this is this week. We will learn from that game.”

Palmer completed 20 of 24 passes for 233 yards and a career-high 146.7 passer rating against a Bears defense that failed to register a sack for the second straight game and generated no takeaways. His 5 TD passes equaled the record for a Bears opponent, last accomplished by the Packers’ Brett Favre in 1995.

“We pride ourselves on playing tough football and it seemed like it was just too easy for Cincinnati today,” said defensive end Adewale Ogunleye.

“Nobody wants to lose like this, especially Chicago,” said safety Danieal Manning. “We didn’t play the way that we know we are capable of playing. We just didn’t get the job done. We deserve everything that’s going to be said later on, and we’ve just got to ‘man up.’”

The Bears will look to rebound next Sunday when they host the struggling Cleveland Browns (1-6).

“We’ve got to get back to work,” Cutler said. “Luckily enough for us, there are 10 games left. There’s a lot of football left. We’re a better team than we showed out there. We’ve just got to get back at it and start playing Bear football.”