The Bears will accept apologies in writing or in person. Nothing elaborate, but heartfelt. Doubts begone. All is forgiven.
“Monday Night Football” jinx? Bah. Puny victories over petty opponents? Wins are wins. Shabby defense? Four sacks and a drive-stopping fumble recovery dismiss the Vikings 14-6.
Hello, Dallas. Look over your shoulder and you won’t see the 49ers, you’ll see the Bears.
“I think we got their (the league’s) attention,” said coach Dave Wannstedt. “We had to win this game and try to separate ourselves a little bit, and we did it.”
Suddenly, halfway home, not only are the Bears in control of their own division, and very nearly their own destiny, but they are sniffing the top of the pile.
Leaping into the vacancy left by the 49ers, the Bears are by record the best of the rest and in the unlikely position of guarding against thinking about things like first-round byes and home-field advantage instead of Pittsburgh next.
This all after three weeks of apologizing for merely winning football games against the pocket lint of the league, not that the Vikings are any Jacksonville.
Amplifying the accomplishment is that it came on Monday night, and on the road, an achievement unfamiliar since the Gulf War. The Bears and Monday night have gone together like a hydrant and a spaniel.
Not that the Bears’ custom of losing Monday night football games was an insignificant benefit to mankind. There is so little to depend on in these uncertain times that the Bears provided a valuable service.
Peace may collapse, the guilty may go free, you might never be able to find a twist tie when you need one, but you could always be reassured that between Sunday and Tuesday the Bears would find some way to step on their own tongues.
Not anymore, not on this night, thanks again to Erik Kramer and the Bear offense, though the defense did its share for a change, holding the Vikings without a touchdown and making 14 second-quarter points more than enough.
“We talked about being in a game where we’d have to rise up and win one 10-6 and 10-9,” Wannstedt said, “and our defense did that. We held them to two field goals. I mean, outstanding.”
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The Bears’ first touchdown had shades of Refrigerator Perry, who became a folk blob on “Monday Night Football.” It belonged to Jim Flanigan, defensive tackle, who caught a short play-fake pass from Kramer with much too much dexterity to become the kind of freak treasure that Perry was.
This was Flanigan’s second such touchdown reception of the year–the first against Green Bay also on a Monday night–and he’s going to have to make it look a lot more difficult or the Bears are apt to give him Ironhead Heyward’s old number.
It may not yet be Aikman to Irvin or Young to Rice, but Kramer to Conway is becoming the same kind of instant, game-changing ambush.
After a first half of yarn-rolling–the familiar, old-fashioned grunt and grip of the Central Division–instead of nursing a 7-3 lead into the locker room, Kramer launched a ball toward Curtis Conway, who had not caught a pass the entire half, nor would he the rest of the game.
Conway gathered in the ball over Alfred Jackson and flopped inelegantly onto the goal line for a touchdown. Rice would have surely remained upright, and Irvin would have managed more elaborate choreography in the end zone, but Conway is still a work in progress.
The Bear defense managed several moments of genuine respectability, if not tormenting Moon enough to make him quit as Green Bay did last week, causing Moon to flinch. The only time the Bears had as many as four sacks was in the third game of the season against Tampa Bay.
The Bears still seem incapable of winning easily and had to withstand a late drive by the Vikings after Rashaan Salaam had again fumbled. Minnesota drove to the Bears’ 20-yard line before Barry Minter caused Qadry Ismail to fumble a pass from Moon and Al Fontenot recovered.
“These games are golden,” said Kramer, “in the division, on the road, Monday night. We `ixnayed’ a lot of demons tonight. It was a good night.”