Before it even began, last Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Green Bay Packers was a dangerous game for the Bears, packed with risks and pitfalls. As it played out, aside from a cataclysmic injury to Brian Urlacher or Rex Grossman (which some uneasy fans might regard as a positive at this point), almost every calamity that could have befallen the Bears did. Yet Bears fans can stop pulling their hair out and tearing at their Grossman jerseys. The Bears will win their opening playoff game next week, no matter who they play. What happens after that will determine whether the undeniable heroics of the 2006 Bears are remembered as a legend in the making or merely cheap thrills.
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Almost every detail surrounding Sunday’s game at Soldier Field conspired to add significance to it–much to the Bears’ dismay. The Bears entered 13-2, the best record in the National Football Conference, and on the surface had nothing to play for, having already clinched home-field advantage through the playoffs, while by the time of the opening kickoff the 7-8 Pack had already been eliminated from the postseason. But the rivalry between the two teams is so intense that the records couldn’t have been more inconsequential; it’s not uncommon for a bad team to take pride in dealing a punishing loss to their betters to salvage a lost season, and it doesn’t take a hypersensitive Bears fan to recall how the Pack’s Charles Martin all but singlehandedly ended the Bears’ mid-80s dynasty with his brutal hit on Jim McMahon in 1986. Bears head coach Lovie Smith said in his very first news conference that his top priority was to beat Green Bay. He found that sentiment thrown back in his face last week when he least wanted to hear it.
Still, for all the importance placed on the game, it was in fact meaningless. In effect the Bears played with one hand tied behind their backs, showing no inventiveness in their offensive game plan and withholding their more intricate blitz packages and coverages on defense. This was because–and it’s a sin of omission that no one pointed this out, from Madden to the so-called experts at the dailies–the Bears were clearly playing possum, hiding their best offensive and defensive schemes from their potential playoff opponents. It’s because the Bears’ offensive plays were predictable that the Packers had such success disrupting them and picking off passes; meanwhile on defense the Bears sat back in a zone and let Favre pick them apart. Their one surprise–a fake punt–was inserted precisely to give those upcoming opponents something to study apart from the usual, forcing them to spend precious time preparing for a Bears fake where it’s usually more than enough to try to find ways to contain Devin Hester on punt and kickoff returns.
