The Bears never seriously considered a nostalgic one-year return to Wrigley Field for their 2002 season. Their home for 51 years was dismissed without a phone call because its capacity of below 50,000 would not meet NFL standards or accommodate their season-ticket base.
“I was also told we would have a hard time fitting a football field in there,” said Jim Miller, the Bears’ director of business operations who is spearheading plans for temporary housing during the planned renovation of Soldier Field. The University of Illinois is the front-runner.
The Wrigley Field end zones were practically flush against the brick walls without the cushion of ivy, not that the Bears use the end zones enough to endanger their players.
Moreover, the Bears would have to play the first month of their season on the road to avoid conflicting with the Cubs. In nearly all the years they played at Wrigley, their season began with at least two games and sometimes four on the road, a disadvantage that owner-coach George Halas cited for his team’s frequent slow starts.
In 1968, after Halas had lost four consecutive road openers and turned the coaching over to Jim Dooley, the Bears opened at home without the added east side bleachers, which took two weeks to assemble.
“Halas called me up and said, `I don’t want to put too much pressure on you, but this is costing me $50,000,'” Dooley said.
The Bears lost to the Washington Redskins 38-28.
In Champaign, every game will be a road trip, a hassle the Tennessee Titans endured during an 8-8 season in Memphis in 1997.
Miller said the Bears also dismissed Comiskey Park for similar reasons.
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“We wanted to look at football stadiums only,” Miller said.
Home-field advantage: If you don’t think home field is an advantage, oddsmakers do. Not only are the 3-10 Bears favored Sunday against the 4-9 New England Patriots, the 8-5 St. Louis Rams are favorites against the 11-2 Minnesota Vikings at the TWA Dome and the 5-8 San Francisco 49ers are favorites against the 8-5 New Orleans Saints at 3Com Park.
The Rams have lost their last three home games during a 2-5 skid. The Vikings need one win to clinch home-field advantage in the NFC playoffs. The law of averages and the desperation of the Rams, fighting for their playoff lives, supposedly give the Rams the edge.
The Vikings, however, are still stung by their 49-37 loss at the TWA Dome in last year’s divisional playoffs. It was 49-17 with 8 minutes 13 seconds left, embarrassing until three TD passes by Jeff George made it appear more respectable.
Dan the Man: The decision by Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder to first offer the team’s coaching job to 69-year-old Pepper Rodgers after firing Norv Turner confirmed Snyder’s know-nothing reputation around the league.
“He’s a fraud,” one NFL executive said. “They rationalize by saying all he wants to do is win. Everybody wants to win.”
Receivers coach Terry Robiskie said neither he nor the majority of Redskins players would stand for Rodgers, who has never coached in the NFL. Snyder then named Robiskie interim coach.
Nobody expects it to set a precedent for Snyder listening to Robiskie, who practically admitted Snyder ordered Jeff George to replace quarterback Brad Johnson.
Robiskie said he can get along with Snyder because he played and coached for Al Davis with the Raiders. Davis is the only NFL owner who actually once coached his team, so his daily meddling seems tame by Snyder’s standards.
“If you ask what training have I had to get along with Snyder, I would say I was raised by a guy named Al Davis,” Robiskie said. “I started working with him at a very early age and a lot of people found him a very difficult guy to get along with. And before I left until today, I look at him as a father, just like my father.”
Robiskie said he would gladly stay in Washington and work for a bigger-name coach such as Bill Parcells if Snyder hires one. Robiskie need not worry about Parcells. When Parcells was coach of the New York Jets and was wondering who would buy the team after the beloved Leon Hess died, Snyder bought the Redskins and immediately fired a bunch of longtime employees. Parcells wrote in a diary that became part of his book, “The Final Season”: “He doesn’t even own the team for a month and he gets rid of 25 people. This is when I ask myself if the next [owner] in here is going to be another Dan Snyder. If he is, I’m gone. I don’t need any owner-operators in my life anymore.”
Heisman votes: Raiders cornerback Charles Woodson is four years younger than Florida State quarterback Chris Weinke and couldn’t see giving him his Heisman Trophy vote. Neither could Raiders receiver Tim Brown. As Heisman Trophy winners, Woodson (1998) and Brown (1987) have votes.
“I can’t vote for Weinke, man. He’s too old,” Woodson said.
Brown said the other quarterbacks–Oklahoma’s Josh Heupel and Purdue’s Drew Brees–didn’t appeal to him either.
“I don’t like giving anything to those quarterbacks,” Brown said. “I like to see someone running with the ball, doing something special.”
Brown and Woodson said TCU running back LaDainian Tomlinson got their votes.
Run it up: The Rams and Vikings feature high-wire passing games, but Sunday’s game could be decided on the ground. The Vikings’ Robert Smith is the league’s leading rusher. The Rams’ slump has coincided with a knee injury to Marshall Faulk.
Since Faulk returned from arthroscopic surgery Nov. 20 against Washington, the Rams have averaged only 59 yards a game rushing, less than half the 125 yards they were averaging during the first eight games before Faulk was hurt.
In his last three games, Faulk has had only nine, eight and 15 carries.
“He’s not as healthy as before the knee injury,” coach Mike Martz said. “But he ran very, very well [last week] against Carolina.”
Cold facts: The “frozen tundra” image moved from Green Bay to Detroit as both teams practiced for Sunday’s game at Lambeau Field. Lions coach Gary Moeller, the last disciple of Woody Hayes and Bo Schembechler, wanted to practice outdoors, repeating Hayes’ mantra: “If you’re going to fight in the north Atlantic, you’ve got to train in the north Atlantic.”
But because the turf was frozen on Wednesday, Moeller was worried about injuries and moved inside after an hour.
Meanwhile, the Packers were working out in the comfort of their indoor facility across the street from Lambeau.
“It’s snowing fairly hard over here and guys get hypothermia just going out to the car,” Green Bay coach Mike Sherman said. “My philosophy is that you’ve got to have a good practice. That’s of the utmost importance.”
Packers safety LeRoy Butler said the indoor sessions don’t hurt his team’s macho image.
“We don’t practice in that kind of weather,” Butler said. “We live in it every day and get used to it. When we played the other day against the Bears, it was chilly but our guys seemed to handle it well.”
Defensive standoff: Miami’s Dave Wannstedt and Tampa Bay’s Tony Dungy will try to bore each other to death with their defenses Sunday.
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“Whatever defense outplays the other defense is going to be the team that wins,” Bucs cornerback Ronde Barber said. “We go into the game thinking we’re not going to try to outplay their offense, we’re going to try and outplay their defense. Try to make more big plays.”
The game will feature the league’s two top quarterback-sacking tandems: the Dolphins’ Trace Armstrong (15 1/2 sacks) and Jason Taylor (13 sacks) lead the league with 28 1/2. The Bucs’ Warren Sapp (13 1/2) and Marcus Jones (13) are second.
The Bucs are 23rd in offense, the Dolphins 26th. The Dolphins won their Aug. 21 exhibition game 15-13 on five field goals by Olindo Mare.
“Our defense is better, hands down,” Bucs defensive end Chidi Ahanotu said. “You’ve got to look at who we’re playing week in and week out. You take the Miami Dolphins’ defense and they’d never be able to do what we did against the Rams in the championship game on the road. They’ve got talent. They’ve definitely got talent. But as a whole unit working together, our defense is better.”
Said Dolphins cornerback Sam Madison: “They think they’re the best defense in the league; we think we’re the best defense in the league. We’ll see on Sunday.”
Great company: Cleveland coach Chris Palmer and Bears coach Dick Jauron used to be coordinators for the Jacksonville Jaguars. They have another thing in common: Their teams are beat up.
Said Palmer: “The average for injured-reserve guys in the league is 5.5. We’ve got 12. The teams with the most, Cleveland, Chicago (12) and Atlanta (9), all have three wins. You just can’t lose that number of players in today’s market and continue to compete.”