The word for today is roller coaster. I guess that’s two words, and that’s as it should be. Even the Bears are impressed with their perpetual duality.
Good Bears, bad Bears. Good offense, bad defense. Good first half, bad second half. In the playoffs, out of the playoffs. Backs against the wall, noses to the grindstone.
Yin and yang. Ebb and flow. Groan and grin. Lose and win. Todd and Sauerbrun. On the next-to-last Sunday of the season, the Bears were blessed by Tampa and Bay, two better words for an ailing football team than anti and biotic.
“Maybe we have their number like Green Bay has our number,” said Vinson Smith.
The inexplicable deserves an explanation and that is as good as any. Tampa had the same at stake as the Bears, not to mention the same record, and the Bucs are as equally Pro Bowl-less as the Bears. This was like a reunion of whims, best afterthought wins. But Tampa Bay or not, when the Bears get a rare rout, the first thought that occurs is why can’t they do that every week?
“We just can’t keep having that roller-coaster ride,” said linebacker Ron Cox. “It’s been that way since the preseason. We’ve just got to get a little better next week.”
There’s that word, those words, roller coaster. Also used by Rashaan Salaam to describe his, well, his up-and-down season.
“It’s been a real roller-coaster ride,” Salaam said. “I’ve had good days and bad days, but I’m only 21 years old and I’ve got a lot of football left in me.”
On this day, Salaam rushed for 134 yards and three touchdowns. That would be the coaster part. He also fumbled, his sixth lost fumble of the year, at the end of a splendid run, 42 yards, also his long of the year. That would be the roller part.
“I’m not a fumbler,” said Salaam.
You say bobble and I’ll say boo-boo.
The result is that the Bears cling to the playoff precipice, not that it matters.
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“Our season is going to be interpreted by the last two games,” said Erik Kramer. “Philly (the Eagles, next week’s opponent) is on a roll.”
As opposed to on a coaster, I guess.
On both sides of the ball, the Bears played better than in any game not involving Minnesota.
“They went out today and didn’t get bothered by distractions,” coach Dave Wannstedt said. “They were not affected by what was being said outside the house.”
Echoed Cox, “Our backs were against the wall, everybody was criticizing us, we were depressed and down, fighting from the bottom of the barrel, but we kept believing in ourselves and fighting back.”
I find this a little bit self-deluding. If all it took for the Bears to play well was insults, the defense should have been on a tear since, oh, about the first week of October.
Kramer has held up his end most of the year, as he did Sunday, becoming the most prolific passer in any Bears season, not a distinction to challenge the memory of Walter Payton or Dick Butkus. The record he broke–492 pass attempts–belonged to Jim Harbaugh, and anyone who can remember when Harbaugh set it gets a bus ticket to Indianapolis.
The only meaningful record for Kramer would be Super Bowls quarterbacked, and that is not likely to happen.
“I just hope for our players, our coaches, our organization and our fans, we have a chance to play for something,” said Wannstedt, this before the result of the Atlanta loss was in. The Bears need to beat the Eagles, Atlanta must lose to the 49ers and the Vikings must lose either Monday night or next week.
This is not like controlling one’s own destiny, more like flying standby. And the Bears deserve no better.
“First we have to beat Philadelphia,” Smith said. “After that whatever happens is supposed to. We had opportunities all year and we didn’t take advantage of them. We know that, we know. We’ll just have to deal with that the rest of the summer.
“It’s a roller-coaster ride for 16 games.”
In case you hadn’t noticed.