Hello? Dr. Kevorkian? Never mind.
The Bears have chosen life, or if they’re going, they’re not going alone. They might just take someone else with them.
Start with the world champion Packers, still standing after a brief Monday night fright, but not without bruises, not without looking both ways before crossing the 50-yard line.
Losses are losses and more painful to real rivals, which the Packers remain and which the Bears have to be considered again, never mind that the Bears were too little regarded even to be booed when they took Lambeau Field Monday night.
After 152 of these things, you’d think scorn would come if not out of dread, at least out of habit.
But this one had encouraging signs of not only actual animation but cranky feistiness, as if the Bears do not plan, as has been widely suggested, to spend the season as a carpet.
The Bears were not above, nor below, the well-timed cheap shot, the most obvious coming from linebacker Bryan Cox at the end of the first half, a sucker whack of center Frank Winters, sending him back into prize quarterback Brett Favre.
Favre clattered backward and lost his helmet and his temper, but was not nearly foolish enough to do anything but take his indignity to the locker room.
Green Bay coach Mike Holmgren, on the other hand and without a helmet, challenged Cox like a hen protecting the nest egg, which, of course, Favre is.
Cox added more stink to his own pile by, with the game lost, coming in late to a play and then raging without a helmet.
Against the rules. Not the rage, the missing helmet.
“He can’t do that; we know that,” coach Dave Wannstedt said. “We can’t have an episode like that every week.”
I don’t know why not. Cox shows a pulse, at least, the first against Green Bay in years.
If Cox is determined to reinvent the rivalry from the Bears’ side, this is a significant start, similar but not quite as outrageous as Charles Martin body-slamming Jim McMahon back when the championship rings were on the other finger.
Now if only Cox could get as proficient at pass coverage as sucker punching, the Bears might actually win a few games.
Also prominent in this regard was none other than John Thierry, poster failure for the Wannstedt Interlude, who played with the hostility of an unfed butcher.
The defensive line as a whole harassed Favre for large chunks of the evening, making the Packers settle for field goals instead of touchdowns.
It was not until late in the second half that the Bears began to stand around on their tongues and resemble their recent selves. And still the Bears never quit, hanging in to beat the spread, if the not the Packers.
The Bears’ offense did not shame itself, Erik Kramer clearly proving the proper choice over Rick Mirer at quarterback, directing an attack that will, at its best, bore a defense into submission rather than overwhelming it.
“I could not have played worse,” Kramer said.
Of course he can, and has. When the offense scores 24 points, outgains the other team in yardage, gets more first downs and controls the clock, it will win more than it loses.
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“We lost the battle of turnovers,” Wannstedt said. “We give them two and they get 14 points. We get two and get a field goal.”
Kramer did give back as much as he took, throwing a first-half interception to cornerback Doug Evans that gave control of the game back to the Packers. And Kramer fumbled late into a Green Bay touchdown.
The separation of talent and ambition is still so heavily in favor of the Packers that the Bears’ effort has to be admired over the final score.
And as refreshing as the defense was at times, it must be pointed out that the two best tackles of the evening were made by Kramer, the quarterback, and by Todd Sauerbrun, the punter.
At the end, the Bears were able to walk off the field not winners again, but at least convinced that it could have been worse.
It’s a beginning.