The Saints are the better story; the Bears are the better team.
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The Bears will beat them and ruin the happy ending for the happiest of Saints seasons.
“They are the sweethearts of the league,” Baltimore coach Brian Billick said before his Ravens beat the Saints 35-22. “Everybody loves them, and deservedly so. You go in and beat them, you might as well go and beat up Mother Teresa. You know, `You scums, what are you doing here?'”
The Bears are getting ready to go to the Super Bowl, that’s what.
Here are reasons why:
– Everybody knows the Saints have the No. 1 offense in the league. Does anybody know the Bears outscored them?
The Saints gained the most yardage in the league, but the Bears scored more points over the season, 427-413, and they will do it again Sunday, minus about 400 points. Maybe 27-13.
The point of bringing up the points is that the Bears can hold their own on offense and win it on defense, where so many of these things are decided.
– Drew Brees, Deuce McAllister, Reggie Bush and Marques Colston are high-powered offensive threats, capable of passing and running over, around and through all kinds of defenses.
They are unquestionably outstanding, individually and as a group. Their coach, Sean Payton, is the most creative play-caller in the league. They definitely pose problems.
But this is exactly what the Bears are supposed to be able to stop, or at least slow down enough to catch. They have been designed by Lovie Smith, built by Jerry Angelo and coached by Ron Rivera for the kind of speed and quickness and swarming that disrupts and attacks.
A year ago one player made the Bears defense look slow and unprepared. If Carolina’s Steve Smith can shred it, the Saints just might exterminate it.
But if Payton’s play-calling exposes more fatal flaws, it sure will shock Lovie Smith and every proponent of the Cover-2 system. The Bears’ coach has steadfastly maintained that the Steve Smith game was an anomaly.
He swears by the Cover-2 that first gained widespread notice when Tampa Bay held the St. Louis Rams’ “Greatest Show on Turf” to 11 points in the Bucs’ NFC title loss after the 1999 regular season.
– Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs. The Bears are missing Tommie Harris and Mike Brown, but Urlacher and Briggs are the keys to chasing McAllister and Bush.
One NFC scout whose team played the Bears and the Saints picks the Saints because he believes their ability to power-run is a mismatch against the Bears’ smaller, penetrating defense.
“If they can power-run the ball, it might be a long night for the Chicago Bears,” the scout said. “If they can pick the holes and not allow Chicago to get in the backfield and use their quickness, they may have an opportunity to gash them.
“If the Bears can secure their gap responsibility and they don’t get pushed around, then they have a chance to stop that run.”
The Bears have given up more yardage than they’d like after losing Harris, but their situation is similar to the Colts, who run the same defensive scheme. The Colts finished last in the league in stopping the run yet shut down Kansas City and Baltimore the last two weeks.
Colts safety Bob Sanders, whose healthy return played a vital role, was asked about the Colts’ turnaround.
“I think it’s attitude, everyone being passionate about it, wanting to go out and win and wanting to be the team where we don’t have to really rely on our offense,” Sanders said.
To Urlacher, it’s very simple. “We just have to tackle the guys when they get the ball and get them on the ground,” he said.
Good defense is part scheme, part ability, mainly attitude.
– Saints defenders no doubt have a similar approach, but they simply aren’t as good as the Bears. They give up too many big plays–16 touchdown plays of 20 yards or more in 17 games including the playoff. They gave up a 75-yard touchdown pass and a 62-yard touchdown run to the Eagles last week.
The Bears gave up only six such long touchdowns all season, four of them after they had clinched a first-round bye in Week 14, none last week.
– The Saints have very good special teams; the Bears have better ones.
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The Bears rank ahead of the Saints in punt- and kickoff-return differential, gross punting average, net punting average, punts inside the 20 and field-goal percentage.
– The game is in Chicago. The Saints aren’t in New Orleans anymore.
Although they had a better record on the road (6-2) than they did in the Superdome (5-4), the Saints would benefit from a loud home crowd, as they did against the Eagles.
The Bears don’t have a similar noise advantage, but assuming Chicago fans will refrain from booing Rex Grossman, the Bears believe this is not only their home, it’s their time.
As great a story as the rehabilitated Saints and their recovering city are–and it would be even greater if they got to the Super Bowl–the Bears believe it is their turn.
The Bears have plotted and practiced and expected to be here. The Saints weren’t sure they would be anywhere. No doubt the Saints belong; they’ve earned it. But this story is already too good to be true.
Think of it like this: If you thought before the season that all the Bears had to do to get to a Super Bowl was beat the New Orleans Saints at Soldier Field, you’d have bought that ticket to Miami.
If the Bears can’t do it, more power to the Saints.
But the Bears will never have a better chance.
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