Never will the Bears have a better chance to get to a Super Bowl, although, as Brett Favre said Sunday night with the look of a retiring man, “It’s hard to do.”
Forget Sunday night’s bumbling loss to the Packers. Winning a Super Bowl might be another matter for the Bears, because it won’t include any other NFC teams. But if they play for another 87 years, there never will be a better alignment of stars.
Lack of stars would be more accurate, because the NFC is not exactly what George Halas left, especially now that the captivating Favre is in Year 3 of his Green Bay farewell tour.
As usual, Favre looked as if he could play forever, then abruptly broke into tears during a postgame interview on NBC, saying, “I’ll miss these guys and miss the game.”
Later, he refused to elaborate but got reflective. If he stays, the Bears can blame themselves because Favre was so sharp. “I always thought I could play at a high level, but this is reassuring,” he said.
His most revealing comment was that he plans to make a decision “soon,” he said, “probably in the next couple of weeks.” That kind of timetable, unlike last off-season’s continual soap opera, indicates the decision may already be made.
Favre will undergo surgery on his left ankle Monday in Green Bay, and that outcome as well as his rehabilitation schedule may also play a role in future plans.
“I’d love to be in the playoffs,” Favre said. “I’ve had a blast with these guys. What a way to go out. For us, that was our Super Bowl.”
Like the rest of the NFC, Favre isn’t what he used to be, a good thing for the Bears. Anyone who watched his ageless arm in action again Sunday night would doubt the retirement talk, unless he is truly tired of too many young receivers like Ruvell Martin running wrong routes, as Martin did on Favre’s first-quarter interception. That came shortly after Favre’s bullet touchdown pass to Donald Driver on a similar route gave the Packers a lead against a Bears defense that is trying to sharpen its game.
It also came before Rex Grossman’s three first-half interceptions outnumbered his completions by one and had to make football fans wonder how Favre could possibly be an NFC quarterback and not make the playoffs.
If Halas were president of the old-guard NFC today, as he once was, he would convene a meeting, which would be more exciting to watch than the 172nd meeting between the Bears and Packers.
There have been plenty of meaningless Bears-Packers games, but Sunday night was more unusual than a 57-degree New Year’s Eve on the lakefront. How can a Bears-Packers season finale be meaningless when the Bears had the best record in the league and the Packers had a chance for a playoff spot hours earlier?
Something is fishy, and it’s more than the defending NFC champion Seahawks.
At a meeting, Halas would declare that Arizona coach Dennis Green was right at least once in 2006. Green’s subject was the Bears. The NFC should crown their fancy pants forthwith.
Halas would convince the rest of the NFC to dispense with the early rounds of the playoffs and concede the NFC title to the Bears, the only true and deserving champions. This would save the Bears unnecessary wear and tear and give them a better chance against the clear and daunting superiority of the glorious younger conference, the AFC.
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If the 2006 NFC season is any indication, there would be little resistance to Halas’ suggestion.
At least the Bears did something to gain their division title, like win. In fact, they were the only NFC team that did. They beat the Minnesota Vikings on Dec. 3 to clinch the NFC North title. While beating the Vikings is no reason to celebrate in itself, it was more than the other NFC division champions could do when they clinched.
The New Orleans Saints lost to the Washington Redskins on Dec. 17, the day other NFC South teams abdicated, handing the Saints the title. The Saints felt sheepish when they found party hats in their locker room.
Likewise, the Seattle Seahawks lost to the San Diego Chargers on Dec. 24, the day the San Francisco 49ers lost to the Arizona Cardinals, handing the Seahawks the NFC West title. Most Seahawks players hastily stuffed their hats and T-shirts into their lockers rather than wear them.
The Philadelphia Eagles lined up for their kickoff against the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday afternoon and soon found out they had just been crowned NFC East champions because the Dallas Cowboys lost earlier Sunday to the Detroit Lions.
The Cowboys had already clinched a playoff spot, but their 39-31 loss to the lowly Lions with the division title still undecided proved the Cowboys aren’t looking forward to extending their season into a new year.
Except for the Bears, who need not apologize for beating up on all of them, NFC teams played this season as if every game was the morning after New Year’s Eve.
Now it looks likely that all the Bears have to do to get to the Super Bowl is beat Seattle, which they already have done by the convincing score of 37-6, and then beat New Orleans, provided the Saints can continue their magic and get to their first title game ever.
The Bears have been less than impressive in most playoff games on the slippery Soldier Floodplain since 1985, but most of their home losses came against teams more accomplished than this year’s batch.
Before the season started, the thinking was this: The NFC East and NFC South had more good teams than the NFC West and NFC North. But because this year’s schedule had the NFC East playing the NFC South, those good teams were supposed to knock each other off, opening the wild-card door for teams from the West and North.
Instead, the Saints bounced from their last-place 3-13 record to a title in the division that has provided three recent Super Bowl participants, including this year’s preseason Super Bowl favorite and last year’s Bears’ nemesis, the Panthers.
The NFC East ended up contributing three teams, although the Cowboys and Giants still might decline the invitation. The Eagles went from worst-to-first with their 36-year-old backup quarterback, Jeff Garcia.
The West, South and North produced one winning team apiece, the East two. That’s a total of five winning teams in the NFC, which is actually one more than survived 2004.
Progress is where you find it, and it’s not usually in the NFC. If January and February 2007 doesn’t begin the year of the Bear, another chance to celebrate may not come around soon unless, of course, they never have to see Favre again.
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