New year, new coaches, new players–same old Bears.
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When Smith said anxious no doubt he meant expectant, but he had it right in stressing the anxiety. Without middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, who’d injured a calf in the previous game, the Bears’ defense was open to slashing, spinning runs up the middle by Edgerrin James, which gave Manning an extra option he didn’t need in order to pick the Bears apart by air. He marched the Colts to a touchdown on their first possession, and though the Bears’ defense stiffened for a stretch, by the end of the first half he had it figured out and was showing off–going without a huddle, calling audibles at the line, and just generally treating the Bears like sandlot players he could have beaten with a squad of peewees and a bottle cap for drawing up plays in the dirt. It was 27-3 Indianapolis at the intermission on three Manning touchdown passes, and he added another one in the third quarter on a ball perfectly thrown deep to Reggie Wayne over two defenders. A CBS graphic informed the TV audience that the four touchdown passes on the day equaled the Bears’ total for the season. Rookie quarterback Craig Krenzel got the Bears up to five with a toss to tight end Dustin Lyman after engineering a drive against the Colts’ prevent defense late in the game, and the final score was 41-10. So much for finding out how good the Bears really were against the league’s best.
Yet, that said, it didn’t do justice to this season’s Bears. Not to establish myself as the Pollyanna of Chicago sports after writing such relatively kind things about the Bulls last week, but in spite of–no, because of–the injuries they’ve suffered, this season’s Bears proved to be surprisingly fun to watch. First of all, the utter ineffectiveness of the offense after Grossman went down brought defense to the fore, and there’s nothing a Chicago football fan likes better than a tough team defense. The Halloween win at Soldier Field gave hints of a defense coming together, and the mauling of the Giants and ballyhooed quarterback Kurt Warner in New York confirmed it. At 262 pounds, defensive end Alex Brown, who produced four sacks against the Giants, is a relatively lithe defensive lineman by today’s standards. He played great in a 13-10 loss to the Washington Redskins early in the season, took the next week off in Tampa Bay–inconsistency is symptomatic of a young player still finding his way in the league–and after that became a beast. At least that’s what he was until he disappeared again against Manning and the Colts, just when the Bears needed him most. (The Bears were lining him up unusually wide to the right, theoretically to put his speed to better use, but he could never use it to get to Manning.) With Brown leading the way, rookie defensive tackle Harris looked better and more confident every week and eventually proclaimed the defensive line best in the league. The rest of the line consisted of the other end, newly acquired all-pro Adewale Ogunleye, who’d proved with a big game against the Titans that he was worth the cost of wide receiver Marty Booker, and rookie Tank Johnson, who split time with Alfonso Boone at the other tackle. It looked as if Harris had a point, especially with Michael Haynes added in. Filling in at almost every position across the line, Haynes showed against the Titans that he may yet be worth the first-round pick the Bears spent on him in 2003 by spearing a short pass out of the air and running it back 45 yards for a touchdown–shades of Keith Traylor and his eye-popping interception return during the 2001 season.
The Bears returned this week for the first time in years to the national TV stage of a Thanksgiving Day game in Dallas against the Cowboys. With Urlacher at their disposal to run wild on the turf at Arlington Stadium, they’d have been much more likely to win; but even without him it was safe to say a Chicago fan could sit and watch at no risk to his or her appetite. They can whet it on the future, when Urlacher and Grossman are healthy and a few more college prospects have been added to the promising nucleus they’ve already put together.
