[CBFF] Adversity part of deal (Downey)

[Victor Waldron]

Adversity part of deal
Distractions only seem to inspire Bears more
Mike Downey
In the wake of the news

December 18, 2006

How do you go out and prove to everybody what a good football team you are?

You tune out everything bad.

You overcome one crisis after another after another, as the 2006 Bears
continue to do.

Critics knock your quarterback and demand that he be sent to the
bench? You deal with it.

Injuries knock out a bunch of your very best players? You deal with it.

A teammate gets into a brawl at a coffee shop, ends up convicted of a
crime and suspended for a game? Deal with it. Another teammate gets
arrested, released on bail and later is questioned in a homicide
investigation? Deal with it.

A bad team like Tampa Bay comes to your house and drags your good team
into overtime before succumbing 34-31?

You give up 58 points in two weeks and give everybody yet another
reason to worry that something could be wrong with the Bears?

Deal with it.

"We won the game," middle linebacker Brian Urlacher said emphatically
after Sunday's close call, as if trying for the umpteenth time to
explain something to a child. "It's not about yards. It's not about
points. All that other [stuff] doesn't matter at all.

"We're 12-2. What more do you want from us at this point in time?"

If you are a Bear, all you can do is go out there, play and win. The
rest is out of your hands.

How do you handle a scandal? How do you deal with a situation that can
disrupt a team?

"Easy," cornerback Charles Tillman said. "I play football. I'm an
expert on me, myself and I."

And the Tank Johnson affair?

"I'll leave that decision to the people who make those decisions."

How do you get by when you lose a Mike Brown from your secondary and a
Tommie Harris from your defensive line and a John Tait from your
offensive line and a Nate Vasher and the Johnsons, Todd and Tank, and
so forth?

"Because we have to," defensive end Alex Brown said. "What choice do
we have? You play with what you've got."

And what they still have ain't too bad.

That's why, while others got on Cedric Benson's case before the season
and Ricky Manning Jr.'s case early in the season and Rex Grossman's
case at midseason, the Bears tried in vain to remind the critics:
"We're still winning."

That's why, while others worried what the team would do with no
Tommie, no Nate, no Tait, no Tank, etc., the Bears tried to tell them,
"We'll worry about that when we lose."

That's why, if others crab about blowing a 21-point lead to the
bottom-feeding Buccaneers, the Bears wish everybody would keep in mind
what Urlacher kept trying to make perfectly clear: "We won the game."

And once again this team overcame a serious crisis, as it seems to do
week after week.

Tank Johnson can't play? Ian Scott can.

"I'm not exactly new," Scott pointed out. "I did start the first five
games this year, you know. I started a lot of last year's games. It
isn't like I haven't been here before."

Do they need Tank back? Maybe they do, maybe they don't.

Do they want Tank back? To a man they do.

"We want him here with us," said Scott, who took Tank's spot in the
starting lineup. "My heart goes out to him."

Alex Brown couldn't agree more.

"That's a very sad situation," he said. "Hopefully he can not only
come back from this, but come back from it stronger than ever."

Tillman would prefer that the team has Tank, but he also believes they
can win without him.

"Our replacements are as good as our starters," Tillman said. "Alfonso
Boone and Ian Scott can step right in. Even if we have four or five
starters out, we have Mark Anderson, we have Izzy [Idonije] and the
rest, and we're still very strong, in my opinion. But what do I know?

"There's an old saying: Things are never as bad as they seem."

This team would know. Hardly a week has gone by without the Bears
needing to cope with some kind of a controversy or setback.

"CSI: Chicago" was this week's case: The raid on Johnson's home,
followed by a fatal shooting at a nightclub.

"He's a good guy," Urlacher insisted. "I'm going to stay behind him. I
don't think it's as bad as people are making it out to be. He's a good
kid who got caught up in a bad situation."

Week in, week out, the Bears have had to deal with their share of bad
situations.

But they have. They win and they win and they win, and as Urlacher put
it, what more do people want from them?