This Is Getting Unbearable

Another Sunday spent watching the Chicago Bears, another Sunday being told that everything you were taught as a kid was a dirty, bald-faced lie.

No, the breaks don’t always even out in the end.

Yes, you can fool all of the people all of the time.

No, practice doesn’t make perfect.

Yes, the Bears can throw for touchdowns against somebody other than Tampa Bay.

Provided the punter is the thrower and the middle linebacker is the catcher.

The Washington Redskins should have seen it coming, if they had done their homework. The Bears beat them on the same kind of play 30 years ago, Dick Butkus breaking free on a busted PAT and hauling in the game-winning pass.

We should have seen it coming, too, if we’d paid closer attention to that sideline exchange between several Bear defensive players and John Shoop, the team’s offensive coordinator, two weeks ago in Green Bay.

The Bears, if you remember, were losing to the Packers, 17-7, in their own private Amos Alonzo Stagg Bowl. Three yards and a cloud of frozen tundra. Three things can happen when you put the ball in the air, and two of them are bad--and the third, a two-yard swing pass to the fullback, isn’t all that great, either.

This being a family newspaper, we can’t quote the exchange verbatim but reporters on the sideline insist it went something like this:

Bear defenders: “Please, Mr. Shoop, just one pass to someone downfield wearing a number higher than 36?”

Shoop: “If you think you can do any better, go ahead.”

So they did.

Sunday, on the road and down by a field goal, with Jim Miller on his way to another sub-100-yard passing day, the Bears lined up for another field goal. Middle linebacker Brian Urlacher jogged onto the field with the kicking unit, then went in motion, then ran a short out pattern after the ball was snapped to the team’s punter and placekick holder, Brad Maynard.

Maynard stood up and started running with the ball. Same old Bears, keeping the ball on the ground.

Suddenly, however, Maynard raised his right arm and used it to throw the football.

To Urlacher.

Who not only caught it and turned and ran upfield with it, but kept running, all of 27 yards, into the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown in an eventual 20-15 Chicago victory.

On many different levels, this could qualify as the NFL’s play of the year.

Maynard-to-Urlacher, the passing combination Chicago’s been searching for all season.

Urlacher catching the ball, amid real-game conditions, after dropping it both times the play was tested in practice.

The Bears to 11-3, keeping them a game ahead of Green Bay in the NFC Central and on track for at least one home playoff game.

The St. Louis Rams, who needed to win at Carolina to stay ahead of Chicago in the race for home-field advantage, resorted to trickery, which is nothing new for them, except this time it was: A couple of defensive players, Dre Bly and Dexter McCleon, ad-libbing on the run.

Scooping up the ball at the Carolina 44 after the snap went awry on a Panther field-goal attempt, Bly ran some until he was hemmed in by potential tacklers, then glanced to his right and lateraled to McCleon, who sprinted the final 29 yards for a touchdown in the Rams’ 38-32 victory.

“We practiced that all week--aren’t I a great coach?” Ram Coach Mike Martz joked afterward.

Still nothing but a finesse team, the Rams. In Chicago and Pittsburgh, teams are winning by keeping the ball out of harm’s way on offense and keeping the opposition quarterback scrambling for his life on defense. They bang facemasks, they butt heads, they grunt and snort and win their games the same way Baltimore did en route to the last Lombardi Trophy.

Not the Rams, who play their football the old-fashioned way, the 1999 way, when Kurt Warner first established himself as the second coming of Bob Waterfield run through the Arena League. They still throw it all over the lot, they still get it to Marshall Faulk (who notched his fifth consecutive 1,000-yard rushing season), they still win games on the road.

Good to see there’s still some tradition in this league.

In a game that went off despite the protests of PETA, the 12-2 Steelers cruelly abused the 1-13 Detroit Lions, 47-14, welcoming native son Mike McMahon back to Pennsylvania by sacking him during the first 30 seconds, forcing a fumble and returning it 27 yards for the first of many touchdowns.

The Steelers, who were 9-7 last year, haven’t been 12-2 since 1978. Their season has been something of a shock, especially with Jerome Bettis out the last three games with a groin injury.

Scratching their heads, NFL observers have attributed the turnaround to a 180-degree career turn by quarterback Kordell Stewart, which sounds good until you take a closer look at the statistics.

After 14 games in 2000, the much-maligned Stewart had 10 touchdown passes and six interceptions.

After 14 games in 2001, MVP candidate Stewart has 11 touchdown passes and five interceptions.

As for the New Orleans Saints, 7-7 this season after a 48-21 loss to Tampa Bay, who can explain their fall from grace? With essentially the same roster as last year’s NFC West championship team, the Saints, in a must-win game, fell behind, 30-0, in the first half as Tampa Bay equaled its club record for points scored in a game.

The Buccaneers marked the occasion by injuring another Gramatica. A week after Bill Gramatica blew out his knee while celebrating a successful field-goal try for the Arizona Cardinals, older brother Martin tweaked a hamstring while converting an extra point.

Gramatica-less, the Buccaneers went on to score eight more points, with Tampa Bay going for two after its last touchdown and safety John Lynch handling kickoffs.

Gramatica-less, the Cardinals defeated Dallas, 17-10, to clinch the Cowboys’ first last-place finish since their 1-15 season in 1989.

“We have lost enough games the last two years to last a whole career,” grumbled Dallas running back Emmitt Smith, who really needs to stop complaining and give thanks he’s not a Cardinal.