Miller Has Another Big Game

It was nervous time for the Chicago Bears.

It was overtime and Chris Boniol was lining up to try a 36-yard field goal.

A week earlier, he missed a 41-yard attempt in overtime that would have given the Bears a victory over Minnesota.

But not this time. Boniol’s kick 4:58 into the overtime was good and the Bears beat the free-falling San Diego Chargers, 23-20, Sunday.

“We’re learning how to win the close ones,” said quarterback Jim Miller, who had a second consecutive sensational start and put Boniol in position for the winning kick. “Sometimes your heart can’t take it. That’s a big step for this team to take.”

The Bears’ last three games have come down to kicks. Besides Boniol’s game-winner here and his misadventure last week in a 27-24 loss to the Vikings, the Bears blocked a last-second, 28-yard field-goal attempt by Green Bay’s Ryan Longwell to preserve a 14-13 win on Nov. 7.

Boniol said he wasn’t thinking about last week’s flub, but knew he better not miss. The Bears brought in four kickers to audition last Tuesday, yet none of them were able to displace Boniol.

“I definitely owed it to them,” Boniol said of his teammates. “I needed that kick. The team needed that kick. Today I came through at the end, and was just a little piece of the puzzle today.”

The big piece, then, was Miller, who has thrown for 779 yards his last two games combined. Last week he threw an NFL season high of 422; against the Chargers he ripped a beat-up secondary for 357, going 25 for 38. They were the second and third starts of his six-year NFL career, and Sunday was his first win as a starter.

“We all felt good, especially for Jim,” Bear Coach Dick Jauron said.