Saints Pull Back, Help Bears Surge : NFC: Harbaugh beats weakened pass rush to hand New Orleans first loss. Andersen has 60-yard field goal.

With their tough-guy quarterback, Jim Harbaugh, this was a game that the Chicago Bears won on toughness in the final seconds Sunday at the Superdome.

The undefeated New Orleans Saints, whose defense is probably the NFL’s most intimidating, won the first 58 minutes by beating up on Harbaugh and catching a number of sore-armed quarterback Bobby Hebert’s best passes.

They even kicked a 60-yard field goal, Morten Andersen’s longest.

Then, surprisingly, the Saints shanked a punt. It carried only 12 yards to midfield, whereupon Harbaugh, in the last 1:54, turned the game around.

He completed only two passes up to that point. Aching from dozens of hits and three sacks but suddenly unstoppable, Harbaugh completed his next three--the Bears’ last three passes of the game--to win it, 20-17.

The deciding pass, giving the Bears their first lead of the afternoon with 59 seconds to play, went to wide receiver Tom Waddle on a 12-yard crossing play.

And so the Saints’ winning streak is history. Their 7-1 record is still good, however, for a big lead in the NFC West, and it remains better than Chicago’s 6-2.

That came after the Bears’ William Perry made the defensive play of the season with 2:01 remaining.

On the down before Tommy Barnhardt’s shanked punt, Perry tackled tailback Dalton Hilliard for a one-yard loss at the Saints’ 41, leaving them no alternative but to punt.

Perry shook off a cut-off block and hurdled the blocker to tackle Hilliard.

Perry doesn’t speak to reporters, but Coach Mike Ditka served as a Bear spokesman.

“It was an ugly, wonderful game,” Ditka said. “They took our passing game completely away (for 58 minutes). Harbaugh was fighting for his life out there. That (was) a war zone. The NFL is bad stuff.”

Harbaugh agreed.

“(The Saints) got a half-step jump on our tackles,” he said.

“I was throwing off balance on every play except (when sacked). When I finally got a chance to throw on balance, there was an open receiver.”

That was Wendell Davis, the wide receiver Harbaugh called on to start the winning 52-yard drive. On a play that gained 27 yards for the Bears--at a time when they had only totaled 16 yards passing in three quarters plus--Davis cut through the Saints’ zone defense on a seam route and caught Harbaugh’s pass.

Then Harbaugh passed for a first down to tailback Neal Anderson and for the touchdown to Waddle, who crossed between New Orleans’ front and rear zones.

If you hadn’t seen the first 58 minutes, you would have sworn that the Bears were the best passing team in the league.

It was a remarkable performance, considering the way the Saints had been tossing Harbaugh’s 6-foot-3, 220-pound person about, bloodying him early on, and applying matching bruises to the sides of his face.

Even so, he probably couldn’t have prevailed if the Saints hadn’t adjusted their defense slightly near the end. It wasn’t exactly a prevent defense in the last two minutes, but they did alter their attacking alignment.

A 3-4 defensive team, the Saints for 58 minutes consistently used five rushers--all three down linemen and both outside linebackers, Rickey Jackson and Pat Swilling, the Pro Bowl players who did most of the damage to Harbaugh.

Then, turning conservative, as many NFL defensive teams do in the final minutes, the Saints rushed only the linemen and one linebacker.

They put their other personnel in what became a seven-man zone defense, and Harbaugh, for a change, could see some daylight.

Saint linebacker Sam Mills, always protective of his coaches, said: “We just didn’t execute on that last drive.”

In any case, they executed earlier. Harbaugh finished with five completions in 22 attempts for 61 yards--far behind Hebert’s 27 of 39 for 291 yards.

On a day when Saint receiver Floyd Turner caught a personal-best nine passes for 179 yards and two touchdowns, Hebert dominated the game.

The Bears, in fact, needed a series of breaks to score at all--a New Orleans fumble, for one thing, before their first touchdown, and then the atrocious punt.

When it was over, the Bears had been lapped in total yardage, 313 to 178, although, as usual, Ditka had the last word.

Noting that luck and skill are the most frequently discussed winning ingredients, Ditka said: “We’ll take the luck. I’m tired of the skill.”