He’s Mr. Bear right now, Erik Kramer is. He’s nibbling around Luckman and Lujack. His job is to win football games, instead of merely not lose them. This is an odd assignment for a Bear quarterback. There has not been one with that responsibility around here since Jim McMahon, not that Kramer is anything like McMahon.
“I don’t know how to respond to that,” Kramer said.
Consider it a compliment, I said.
Nostalgia takes a nice picture. There it was on the 50-yard line Sunday at Soldier Field, posing and holding its stomach in. Just to honor the day, maybe the Bears should have won the game 9-7 with Kevin Butler kicking the winner in a snowstorm.
But these Bears are not those 1985 Bears, nor any of their immediate heirs, and the sooner Chicago comes to realize that, the better.
It is time to get used to Kramer to Conway and Kramer to Graham and last-gulp football, used to Rashaan Salaam’s inappropriate fumbles as well as his near-splendor.
It is time to take the occasional defensive donation, such as a sack for a safety, or a fumble recovery, like the old Walter Payton halfback pass, helpful but exotic, not to be relied on.
“We’re not going to be the Chargers of Dan Fouts, winning games 51-50,” Kramer said. “Our defense will come on.”
If he says so. I’m in no hurry. This is refreshing, this 35-32 stuff. No lead is safe, either way, until the last onside kick. Bear fans better get used to sticking around instead of considering a two-touchdown advantage permission to leave.
This is a team that is going to win by scoring, if it continues to win, and Kramer is the key. This is why he was brought here last year. This is why it was his job to lose this year.
Kramer is doing everything right, excluding the 98-yard interception he threw to Houston’s Darryll Lewis just before the half, a play Kramer audibled.
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“It happens,” Kramer said.
When it used to happen, the Bears did not recover. Bear quarterbacks were benched on the spot or shattered on the sidelines by raging coaches.
“The biggest part for me is just being in this offense last year,” Kramer said. “It gives me extra time to see where it’s most effective to go with the ball, being able to anticipate a lot of things. Not because I grew as a player. I thought I was doing a good job in Detroit when I left there. It’s just we’re all within a system. You have to make it part of your nature. If you’re out there thinking, which I was a lot of the time, things don’t go as smoothly.
“This game is really played with your mind as much as anything. You’ve got to have the ability to do the job, but it’s really the people who can play without thinking what they’re doing. Everything just comes natural. The more you’re in a system, the easier things work out.”
This would be true, too, for Curtis Conway, stepping into consideration as a great receiver. Conway is Willie Gault. Jeff Graham is Dennis McKinnon.
“Our guys are playing with so much confidence, it doesn’t matter what route is called,” Kramer said. “They think they can win it every time.
“Defenses have to be aware we’re going to take shots deep on them. We want a defense coming into a game having to cover the whole field not just a little bit of it.”
And the offensive line, from Andy Heck to Big Cat Williams, through Todd Perry, Jerry Fontenot and Jay Leeuwenburg. They are giving Kramer time to make the right choices, just like McMahon back in ’85.
“That was then,” Kramer said. “This is now.”
So it is. And come to that, 10 years from glory ought not to be something to celebrate, but something to regret. Payton waving the lone Lombardi Trophy to the crowd at halftime was kind of like holding up one fish.
You can’t help thinking of all the ones that got away.