It’s almost as difficult to get a handle on the Bears as a three-cent stamp right about now. Nobody was ready for either, although the post office at least issued a warning. But this team also is becoming harder to lick, and that’s the problem.
The Bears can’t keep sneaking up on opponents and beating them, too. They have to be faceless or be gone. They can’t have it both ways.
Oh, there’s a trick or two left before Saturday’s playoff game in San Francisco. The Bears could claim an epidemic of nervous breakdowns and submit an injury list with all their nobodies as questionable. Or maybe Erik Kramer can step forward and say that Steve Walsh not only should start, but also finish and take every snap in between.
That might put the Bears over the hump, but probably not. Look at all the commotion these Monsters of the Waiver Wire have caused already. The high-tech Dallas Cowboys, seeking their third straight NFL title, were all set to play Minnesota this weekend. Then the Bears had the nerve to go up to Minneapolis and win, and the Cowboys had to throw out all their charts and graphs about the Vikings.
In a perfect world of information superhighways, the 49ers would ship all the charts and graphs they had prepared about their next foe, the Green Bay Packers, to Dallas. Except the 49ers hate the Cowboys, which is more than the 49ers can say about the Bears. The 49ers don’t even know the Bears. The entire city of San Francisco probably can’t even identify Maurice Douglass, and he’s a male stripper. That’s Athletes Anonymous for you, sports fans.
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Of course, the Bears know all about the 49ers, and that means knowing the 49ers are not the Vikings. For all their talent, the Vikings also have a death wish and not a lot of heart. Since moving indoors, the Vikings’ only objective every January has been to stay warm.
The 49ers set loftier goals. After losing the last two NFC Championships to Dallas, the 49ers have become possessed about winning this year’s Super Bowl. They will settle for nothing less. The 49ers used creative accounting within the salary cap to acquire Deion Sanders, who in turn passed up better offers for a chance to earn a ring in San Francisco.
It’s been that way with the 49ers for years. Since Edward J. DeBartolo Jr., son of the wealthy real estate developer who recently passed away, bought the franchise in 1977, players have killed to wear the uniform. The 49ers go first-class. They wouldn’t park their cars in the Bears’ practice facility. And whenever one of the 49er wives has a birthday, the team sends flowers. You know, that gushy togetherness stuff.
I can’t see Michael McCaskey sending flowers to Bear wives, can you? I’m not sure Michael McCaskey even sends flowers to his own wife on her birthday. He might go out behind Halas Hall and pick a few daisies, but that’s about it. Which is fine. McCaskey operates on a strict budget, and it’s worked. The Bears are 10-7 in the second year of what could have been a five-year rebuilding plan.
Chicago has no reason to weep, unless you remember this is the same DeBartolo family that wanted to buy the White Sox from Bill Veeck before Jerry Reinsdorf got the call. You think DeBartolo would have gotten into a hissing match with Jack McDowell and traded him to the Yankees for a name to be played later? And instead of giving Julio Franco a plane ticket to Japan, DeBartolo would have given Franco either a plane or Japan.
Yet, that’s all part of this underdog theme we must cultivate before Saturday. The Bears will have nowhere to hide if they somehow beat San Francisco, but first they’ve got to do their thing. They’ve gone from overachievers to merely achievers, and it’s time to get that point spread to at least 20 by pretending it’s all over but the cappuccino.
The Bears owe that to themselves, whoever they are.