[CBFF] A Load Off Their Broad Shoulders

[Thomas Shannon]

Here's an article that you might not find posted anywhere else.  I like
Michael Wilbon.  He's from the South Side and, like most of his columns,
this one is pretty well thought out.

Tom S.
------
A Load Off Their Broad Shoulders

By Michael Wilbon
Monday, January 15, 2007; E01



CHICAGO


Every single Chicago Bears player seemed to know that the team hadn't
won a home playoff game in 16 years, which is very likely why they
played like they were fighting both a civic burden and the Seattle
Seahawks in Sunday's NFC semifinal at Soldier Field. At one point during
the game one Bears executive said to another, "It's like they're having
to perform an exorcism out there."

Whether the Chicago Bears officially killed off the evil playoff spirits
will probably be debated through next week's NFC championship match with
the Saints. But that giant wind sweeping east across the Great Lakes was
really an enormous sigh of relief from the Bears and a metropolis
spooked by years of early-round playoff failures. Robbie Gould's 49-yard
field goal in overtime wasn't the ideal way to put away Seattle, but the
Bears' 27-24 victory ended a 12-year postseason drought and puts
Chicago, as Rex Grossman said, "two wins away from having a ring on my
finger for the rest of my life."

For a while in the fourth quarter it looked as if the heavily favored
Bears would be wearing goats' horns for blowing leads of 7-0, 14-7 and
21-14, to fall behind 24-21 until Gould kicked a 41-yarder against the
wind to tie, and the game-winner in overtime.

The largest city between New York and Los Angeles had been in what
amounts to two weeks of therapy. The Bears hadn't won a playoff game of
any kind since 1995, and had blown home-field advantage in 2002 and
2006. As if Grossman and his bizarre up-and-down season hadn't been
analyzed enough, the Chicago Tribune ran a story Sunday that featured
tips from a sports psychologist for the quarterback. No wonder Grossman
said, when asked what he thought of the game-winning kick, "I didn't
want to watch it."

The lopsided signature victories the Bears posted early in the season
are a thing of the past because the defense isn't as strong without
Tommie Harris and Mike Brown, and because, well, it's the playoffs.
"Nothing's going to be easy," Bears defensive end Adewale Ogunleye said
afterward.

"That Philly-New Orleans game [Saturday night] went right down to the
last minute. Peyton Manning and the Colts couldn't score a touchdown on
the Ravens. Nothing in the playoffs is going to be easy. And not only
that, but the Seahawks are no slouches. They were in the Super Bowl a
year ago."

For sure, the Bears gave Seattle just a little bit of help. Grossman,
whose wildly inconsistent season caused much of the local angst -- "He's
been roasted the past couple weeks," his coach, Lovie Smith, said -- had
a decent game. He still makes too many costly mistakes to make you think
"championship quarterback" but he completed 21 of 38 passes against
Seattle' s injury-ravaged defense, limited himself to two turnovers (one
a tipped interception), threw a 68-yard touchdown pass to Bernard
Berrian in the second quarter and completed the 30-yard pass to Rashied
Davis in OT that set up the game-winning kick.

Bears defensive end Alex Brown, who played college football with
Grossman at Florida, said: "Rex is okay. Rex is good. He had Steve
Spurrier in his ear for 2 1/2 years, so he has to be mentally tough.
He's the guy to handle all of this, the criticism and the
second-guessing."

But it isn't just a question of Grossman anymore. Everybody in the
midnight blue jerseys is under a microscope and seemed to exhibit the
effects Sunday of wanting to win so desperately. Bobby DePaul, the
Bears' director of pro personnel, said he turned to his boss, club
president Jerry Angelo, at one point and said, "It's as if they're
carrying a ball and chain around the entire game." Trying to put away
Seattle reminded both men of last season's game against the Packers when
the Bears finally defeated Brett Favre at Soldier Field after 10 years
of losing to him.

Most players said they didn't watch television or read the newspaper the
last two weeks when all the public psychoanalysis made Chicago seem like
one giant shrink's office. But as Brown admitted, "Even when I went on
the Internet, MSN would come up and the headline would be, 'Will the
Bears Finally Win?' "

They did despite some lapses in the passing game, defense and judgment.

The real biggie, especially had it backfired, was Smith's decision to
call timeout with two seconds left in regulation, giving Seattle a
chance to win the game with a "Hail Mary" after the Seahawks players had
left the field, content to let the game go into overtime. What in the
world was he thinking? "Not a good play on my part," Smith said, adding
that the plan was to call the timeout several seconds earlier and force
Seattle to punt, thereby giving his all-pro punt returner, Devin Hester,
a chance to hit a home run and win the game.

The Bears' defense did allow Seattle 306 total yards, but more
importantly managed to stone the Seahawks on more than a half-dozen
critical plays, most notably a fourth-and-one attempt by Shaun Alexander
with two minutes to play in the fourth quarter and the game tied. If
Alexander picks up that first down, Seattle very likely wins the game.
But Lance Briggs nailed Alexander for a loss of two and the game played
on.

What defensive coordinator Ron Rivera and the Bears hope they've
discovered, finally, is that it doesn't help for players to try and
individually compensate for the loss of Brown, the team's best safety,
and Harris, who might be the team's best defensive lineman. They've got
less than a week to figure out something with the Saints and their
top-rated offense coming to town for the NFC title game.

While there's no question the Saints are a better team, perhaps a lot
better, than Seattle, it's still very likely the Bears will play a lot
more free and easy next week, now that they've finally won a playoff
game. "It's not how you win," Alex Brown said. "You don't get to skip
the NFC title game if you win this one by 40."

 
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