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Bears S
Mike Brown
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CHICAGO — You can’t win the race with your foot on the brake.
Four days before the Bears’ Week Seven game vs. the 49ers, Bears’ defensive
coordinator Greg Blache was describing how his club had bolted from last year’s NFC
Central cellar to this season’s toast of the NFL.
"You’ve got to take a chance," Blache said. "You’ve got to
take your foot off of first base to steal second. You’ve got to live dangerously.
You’ve got to dare to be great, and I don’t know if we were willing to dare to
be anything more than safe in the past. Right now, I think we’re daring to be
great."
Perhaps, but that same day, an NFL insider wondered whether the Bears were merely
daring to take advantage of a favorable schedule. After all, the Bears were 4-1 at the
time with victories over Minnesota, Atlanta, Arizona and Cincinnati — not exactly
Murderers’ Row this season.
"They’ve caught teams at the right time," the NFL insider said.
"They could have very easily lost the Viking game. Then they’re off to an 0-2
start, and it may have been a totally different season. You just don’t know with
teams like the Bears and Browns. They don’t have the talent to be where they are.
Now, is this going to be a magic-carpet ride where the key guys stay healthy, and when
there is an injury, it turns into a plus instead of a minus, or is it all going to come
crashing down on them?"
The game against the 49ers figured to help answer that question. Both teams entered the
game with 4-1 records, but midway through the third quarter, it looked like the walls were
tumbling down on the Bears. Chicago, which came into the game having lost standout WR
Marcus Robinson for the season with a knee injury, was down 28-9, and starting QB Jim
Miller had been knocked out of the contest with a hip injury.
Then the Bears’ magic carpet emerged from the rubble. Behind the play of rookies
Anthony Thomas (127 yards rushing and a touchdown) and David Terrell (two TD catches), as
well as the controlled passing of backup QB Shane Matthews, the Bears’ offense woke
up and sent the game into overtime. On the first play from scrimmage of the extra stanza,
Bears S Mike Brown picked off a pass and raced 33 yards for the game-winning score, giving
Chicago a 37-31 win.
Rarely does a team this close to game-day death regain a pulse, much less enjoy a full
recovery. If the Bears weren’t six feet under, down 28-9, they surely were five feet,
11 inches below the surface.
Instead of getting exposed, the Bears may have discovered something extraordinary.
"We’re a team of destiny right now," Bears CB Walt Harris said. "We
didn’t play our best game, but the fact is, when you never give up, there’s
always a chance."
Bears LB Warrick Holdman said, "Everybody believed that we could win, and nobody
gave up. … We believe that we can’t lose. We believe that we’re going to
win every game."
Bears DT Ted Washington said, "Never underestimate a team that’s on the rise.
Now I think we have proven to a lot of people not only are we a good team, but we can find
ways to win, and we’re just going to keep this thing rolling."
How far remains to be seen. It’s unlikely even now that most of the so-called
experts would make the 5-1 Bears their pick to win the Super Bowl, but there’s no
denying that six games into the season, Chicago is off to the same type of improbable
start that resulted in the long-shot Rams and Ravens winning the last two Super Bowls.
"Why not us?" Bears DE Phillip Daniels said. "We could be there. This
could be our year. You don’t get a lot of years. You never know who is going to make
it in a given year now. And this could be our year."
Harris seconded the motion: "Why not us? We’re coming out here, and
we’re trying to make things happen for this season."
The only thing most people thought would happen this season was that the Bears would
lose enough games to get head coach Dick Jauron fired. And it wasn’t just the media
that expected a lot of losses from the Bears.
Two NFL scouts contacted last week said as much. One said he thought the Bears would
"go about 6-10." The other said, "I thought they’d be lucky to go
.500."
So how is it that the Bears have become the biggest surprise of the NFL? Primarily,
it’s been a first-rate defense, which had given up only 8.6 points a game heading
into the game against the 49ers. While Chicago’s defense did not play it’s
"A" game against the 49ers, keep in mind that 14 of San Francisco’s 31
points were the result of defensive scores.
The reason the Bears’ defense has been so good this season can be found up the
middle in MLB Brian Urlacher, DT Washington and safeties Mike Brown and Tony Parrish.
"One school of thought, and I subscribe to this theory, when you build a defense,
you build it from the inside out," 49ers head coach Steve Mariucci said. "Look
at their defense. Ted Washington and Keith Traylor came in new, and they’re in the
inside, and they’re run stoppers. They’re going to be the big guys that are hard
to move, might use up two blockers and keep the linebackers free to run to the ball. Brian
Urlacher is going to be an excellent middle linebacker in this league for a long time. And
then their two safeties, Mike Brown and Tony Parrish, are very solid."
The Bears’ run defense has been especially outstanding, limiting the opposition to
3.0 yards per carry this season. After Bengals star RB Corey Dillon was held to 30 yards
on 16 carries in Week Six, he said, "It seemed like they had three extra guys in
there."
Washington has been outstanding clogging the middle, while Traylor has been average,
according to scouts. Although the humble Urlacher says it’s too soon for the
comparison to be made, he is an elite linebacker who scouts say could become another Dick
Butkus. The scouting report on Parrish is that he is athletic and a big hitter, while
Brown is described as being extremely instinctive. Brown’s game-winning touchdown
against the 49ers may have brought him to the attention of the general public, but the
Bears were talking him up in the days leading up to the San Francisco game.
"He’s probably our best player on defense, if you ask me," Urlacher
said.
Bears DB coach Vance Bedford said, "Mike Brown has stepped up since he’s been
here. He’s kind of taken charge. If you’d come to our practice, he gets after
anybody and everybody from the defensive line to the linebackers. … If we’re not
practicing well, you can hear Mike Brown all over the football field getting after
guys."
After the 49ers game, Washington said, "Mike Brown is playing like a Pro
Bowler."
Urlacher already was a Pro Bowler last season, and — bad news for the rest of the
NFL — he’s only getting better.
"He’s continued to grow," Blache said. "Brian did it last year on
athleticism and instinct. He was doing on-the-job training. Right now, Brian is not a
complete linebacker yet, but he’s understanding his reads and his keys and his fits a
lot better than he did. It’s scary how good this guy could be before it’s all
over."
Contributors are all over the place on the defense. One NFL scout said Daniels is
playing the way the Bears thought he would when they signed him to a big contract in 2000.
Blache said Daniels is playing better this year than last year, but Blache adds that
Daniels played better than people realized last season. OLBs Holdman and Rosevelt Colvin
have benefited from the strong DL play and have been productive. At cornerback, Harris is
playing with more confidence, and R.W. McQuarters has been a gambling big-play maker.
The defense is not the entire story for the Bears. The QB play, expected to be a major
problem this season, has been better than anticipated. The biggest reason for optimism is
because of rookies Thomas and Terrell.
Thomas has rushed for 188 and 127 yards the last two games.
"I think the A-Train is going to be a real fine back for a long time,"
Mariucci said. "He’s just the kind of back I’m sure they’ll enjoy
having. He’s powerful, and he’s got enough speed to go a long way, and he can
make you miss."
Bears C Olin Kreutz said, "Anthony Thomas is a big-time football player. We love
blocking for him."
Terrell is not a starter yet, but he has come up big the last two games. He caught
seven passes for 91 yards against the Bengals, and though he caught only three balls for
19 yards against the 49ers, two were for touchdowns in crunch time.
"With Marcus Robinson going down, other people have to step up," Bears OT
James Williams said of the two rookies. "And for them to step up, that’s exactly
what we need. Hey, we’ll ride the young guys if we have to."
How far they ride them and the defense remains to be seen. But this much is certain.
Daring to be great, the Bears already have ridden further than anyone outside their locker
room could have imagined. |
