Bears' Ride to Super Bowl Had More Peaks Than Valleys

Football Betting Lines

01/29/2007 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - It is easy to get caught up in what the 2006 edition of the Chicago Bears are not.

They are not the frighteningly dominant 1985 Bears, a team that rolled through a magical Super Bowl-winning season at 15-1, holding seven opponents to single-digit points, then outscoring three playoff opponents by a comical total of 91-10.

Frankly, impenetrable forces like the '85 Monsters of the Midway don't exist in the salary cap era, though some high-quality teams still do.

And while the '06 Bears are not the work of art that their 21-year-old predecessor was, Lovie Smith's team did, in fact, find a way to wave the very same NFC Champion banner after 18 games.

There were some flies in the ointment, particularly in regard to one Rex Grossman, but there were periods of dominance as well for a team that scored 15 victories, second-most in franchise history next to...well, you know.

The tone was set early, as Chicago more or less rolled through its first five games.

Smith and company went to Green Bay and destroyed the arch rival Packers (26-0) in Week 1, saddling Brett Favre with the first shutout loss of his storied career. The Bears would seize firm control of the NFC North in the next two weeks, whipping the Lions (34-7) in their 2006 Soldier Field opener and rallying from a late deficit to beat the Vikings (19-16) at the Metrodome. In the latter game, Grossman threw a 24-yard touchdown pass to Rashied Davis in the waning moments, capping off a September in which he compiled a sterling 100.9 passer rating and was named NFC Offensive Player of the Month for his efforts.

Grossman and his teammates celebrated by punishing the reigning NFC Champion Seahawks (37-6) on national network TV the following week, and reinforced their strength with a demolition of former Chicago head coach Dick Jauron and his Buffalo Bills (40-7) seven days later.

It was while they stood at 5-0 that things began to get a bit dicey for the Bears, with Grossman turning into the bright, shining emblem of their perceived weaknesses.

The former University of Florida star committed no fewer than six turnovers in a Monday night road tilt against the struggling Cardinals in Week 6. As the third-quarter clock ticked away, Arizona was ahead, 23-3, and it looked as if Chicago was about to crash back to earth. But just before the start of the fourth, Bears rookie defensive end Mark Anderson stripped Cardinals quarterback Matt Leinart near his own goal line, safety Mike Brown picked up the loose football, and trotted three yards to give Chicago its first touchdown of the night.

Fellow Bears defensive back Charles Tillman got the Bears closer with five minutes to play in the game, returning an Edgerrin James fumble 40 yards to paydirt. And rookie phenom Devin Hester completed the improbable comeback with less than two minutes to play, bailing Grossman and the offense out with an 83-yard punt return for a touchdown to hand the Bears an astonishing 24-23 win.

Then came one of the great moments in NFL press conference history, when Cardinals head coach Dennis Green ranted, "The Bears are who we thought they were! Now, if you want to crown them, then crown (them)! But they are who they thought they were! And we let them off the hook!"

The scene was a bizarre one, but it allowed Chicago to head into their bye week with heads held high. Following the open date, the Bears built a 41-0 halftime lead in an eventual 41-10 rout of the Niners, righting the ship offensively and allowing their fans to breathe a sigh of relief.

But the first true blip on the radar would come the following Sunday, when four more Grossman turnovers helped the formerly 1-6 Dolphins come into Soldier Field and score a 31-13 win. Murmurs about Grossman's play began to get louder, but were quieted significantly when Chicago beat the Giants (38-20) and Jets (10-0) in back-to-back weeks at the Meadowlands. In the former victory, Hester made headlines with a game-changing 108-yard missed field goal return for a touchdown, the longest play in NFL history. In the latter, a 57-yard fourth-quarter catch-and-run by Mark Bradley helped lift the Bears to a 9-1 mark.

An arduous three-game road stretch would end with a loss the following Sunday, as the Patriots forced Grossman into four turnovers in a 17-13 Pats triumph. Chicago returned home with an NFC North-sealing triumph over the Vikings in Week 13, but Grossman's stat line - 6-of-19 passing, 34 yards, 3 interceptions, 1.3 passer rating - had many Bears fans demanding a change under center.

Despite the public outcry and the declining play of his quarterback, Smith stood by Grossman, declaring, "There's a difference between perception and reality. The reality is we're 10-2 right now. We just won the division with Rex at quarterback, so that's what I go on."

Grossman rewarded his head coach's faith by showing improvement in consecutive wins over the Rams (42-27), Buccaneers (34-31 in overtime) and Lions (26-21). Though concerns in Chicagoland switched to a battered defense that was no longer playing at a peak level, the Bears, who had wrapped up the No. 1 seed in the NFC with the narrow victory over Tampa Bay, remained the odds-on favorite to represent the conference in Super Bowl XLI.

National doubts about the team's staying power would multiply during the season-ending home loss to the Packers on New Year's Eve. A 26-7 loss, another Grossman meltdown (2-of-12 passing, 33 yards, 3 INT, 0.0 passer rating), and subsequent comments from the quarterback assigning part of the blame for his performance to the distraction of playing a game on New Year's Eve, had many questioning whether the top-seeded Bears would win their first postseason game since 1994.

When Chicago came off its first-round playoff bye and spotted the Seahawks a 24-21 lead entering the fourth quarter, those fears looked to be well-founded. But a couple of key stops by the Bears defense, some big passes by Grossman down the stretch, and some bigger field goals by Pro Bowler Robbie Gould allowed the Windy City to revel in a 27-24 overtime victory.

With that monkey removed permanently from their collective backs, a more relaxed Bears team played an inspired final 20 minutes to down the Saints, 39-14, in the organization's first NFC Championship appearance since 1988.

With the victory over New Orleans, the franchise built by the legendary George Halas ended the fifth-longest Super Bowl drought in the NFC. Of the current teams in the conference, only the Cardinals, Saints, Lions (no Super Bowl appearances) and Vikings (no Super Bowl appearances since 1976) had suffered through a longer Super Bowl-free stretch than had Chicago.

Moreover, the trip to Miami offered a touch of vindication for a club that saw its legitimacy questioned for most of the season's final three months and well into the playoffs. The doubters remain as the Super Bowl draws nearer, with AFC Champion Indianapolis having been installed as a heavy favorite.

The role of underdog was not one experienced by those revered '85 Bears, who drilled overmatched New England (46-10) to give the franchise what stands as its only Super Bowl title. Should this year's team give the City of Chicago its second Lombardi Trophy, however, there will be few lamenting a relative lack of style points as they line the Magnificent Mile for a parade that figures to be every bit as a celebratory as it was two-plus decades ago.