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The More Devin Hester, the Better

In just one season in the NFL, Devin Hester has become a household name. His explosiveness and blazing speed have broken many a game wide open – just ask the Arizona Cardinals – and his penchant for finding the end zone gives heartburn to opposing coaches. Bears’ fans are itching to see more of their All-Pro return man next season, and Lovie Smith feels the same way.

“You could argue that he’s the most exciting player in the NFL with his hands on the ball,” Smith says.

Dilemma:

“Exciting” may be an understatement. After setting an NFL regular-season record with 6 returns for a touchdown (which does not include his amazing 92-yard dash on the first play of Super Bowl XLI) the Bears have begun mulling over the different ways they may be able to use Hester next season. Although he played on only special teams and defense in 2006, Smith and offensive coordinator Ron Turner are not ruling out the possibility of playing the former Miami Hurricane on offense in 2007.

“He’s obviously a special talent, and to be honest with you, I’ve been trying to recruit him since the day we drafted him,” Turner said at the recent Bears fan convention. “I’m going to keep working on that and see if we can get him on offense.”

Considering his natural elusiveness and uncanny ability to score from anywhere on the field, it would seem a waste to not get Hester the ball as many times as possible in the course of a game – even on offense.

Consider this scenario:

Hester lines up on offense as the H back. At the snap of the ball, the Bears enter the beginning stages of a screen pass. Grossman drops back deep, while the linemen slowly gather in the flats. The play is run well, and Grossman finds Hester in open space just a few yards off the line of scrimmage with blockers in front of him. He scampers through the defense and explodes down the sidelines for a game-changing touchdown.

If anyone does not feel the previous scenario is a real possibility, then you haven’t seen Hester play. Devin Hester, in open space, with blockers in front of him: it is an image that will keep defensive coordinators awake at night if the Bears choose to use him in this fashion.

“He’s shown what he can do when he gets the ball in his hands,” Turner said. “If he’s on offense and we can get his hands on the ball six, seven or eight more times a game, who knows what he might be able to do with it.”

Even Bears’ Hall of Fame running back Gale Sayers sees Devin’s potential on offense. “He has a feel for the field, I’ll put it that way,” he says. “It seems like he has great peripheral vision like I had.”

If Ron Turner has his way, expect him to create a weekly package of 6-10 plays that are designed specifically for Hester. He can line up Devin anywhere on the field and use him as either a receiver or running back – similar to the creative fashion in which New Orleans uses their stud athlete, Reggie Bush. This produces another weapon on the field that opposing defenses must account for. If the other team starts to key too much on the second-year Pro Bowler, Turner can just use him as a decoy to make room for playmakers such as Cedric Benson and Bernard Berrian.

There is a myriad of ways Hester can be used on offense, and it would be a shame for the Bears not to take advantage of him. His presence, coupled with the strong core of position players already in Chicago’s offense, could be the final piece in next season’s championship puzzle.

Make Lovie, Not War: Bears Risk Losing Smith in Contract Fight

I think I speak for all Chicago sports fans when I say enough is enough.

Chicago is the third largest media market in the country, trailing only New York and Los Angeles. Chicago fans come out in droves to see their teams play. And yet, as has always been the case, Chicago owners ply their trade with the kind of frugality that only Ebeneezer Scrooge could love.

Don't believe me? Just ask Lovie Smith.

According to one source, recent contract talks between Smith’s agent Frank Bauer and Bears team president Ted Phillips have left the two parties "miles apart." For penny-pinching Chicago owners, it's just another chapter in a long, shameful history.

Take the Tribune Company, which bought the Cubs in 1981 for the unbelievably low sum of $21 million. Only recently has the Tribune started to reinvest its profits on the field. For twenty years, company brass had no problem pocketing the money of dedicated fans who were willing to support mediocre teams—and even stooped to a price-raising ticket-brokerage scam along the way.

Jerry Reinsdorf, majority owner of the Bulls and White Sox, gets a free pass because of his seven championship rings. But let's not forget that he was one of the primary architects of the 1994 MLB strike—even though his team had the best record in the majors and was the odds-on favorite to win the World Series.

Reinsdorf also signed off on former GM Jerry Krause's decision to dismantle the Bulls after they won their sixth title in 1998. And the owner's current cost-cutting plan to purge the White Sox of nearly every pitcher from the 2005 World Series team is sickening to anyone who cares about baseball on the South Side.

But none of it compares to the exploits of Blackhawks owner Bill Wirtz. Known around the NHL as “Dollar Bill," Wirtz has brought stinginess and selfishness to entirely new levels. ESPN recently ranked the Blackhawks as the worst franchise in sports, and named Wirtz the third greediest owner. His worst sin: He refuses to televise Blackhawks’ home games in Chicago. Add in a complete disregard for basic business ethics—the 1999 Illinois Wine and Spirits Fair Dealings Act is also known as the “Wirtz Law”, and was inspired by the owner's power-abusing liquor company—and you have the worst person to ever run a professional sports team.

And trust me, it's not even close.

Now, Ted Phillips and the McCaskey family (majority owners of the Bears) can't hold a candle to Wirtz's money-grubbing, but their handling of the Smith negotiations makes you wonder if they've been taking deal-making advice from ol' Dollar Bill.

Smith was paid $1.3 million in 2006, which garnered him the inglorious title of Lowest Paid Head Coach in the NFL. He is set to hold that position again with a contract worth $1.45 million in 2007—unless the current talks take a drastic turn in the coming months.

“We’re not close,” says Bauer. “We’re not encouraged and based on where talks have gone recently, Lovie will be a free agent after next season.”

The new contracts handed to Brian Billick (five years for $28.5 million, from the Ravens) and first-time head coach Bobby Petrino (four years and $24 million, from the Falcons) prove that teams around the NFL put a premium on the men wearing the headsets.

So what are the Bears thinking? Take your pick:

“Anybody can win Coach of the Year in only his second NFL season.”

“It’s not that hard to get to the Super Bowl...we just did it 21 years ago.”

"Coaches of character and class are a dime a dozen in this league. (Someone get Nick Saban on the phone.)"

“We know what we’re doing. Look at our track record before Smith showed up...”

The bottom line here is an economic one. The supply of talented head coaches in the NFL is at a record low (just ask the Raiders). With so many teams scrambling to hire anyone with even a semblance of competence, it's understandable that contracts for coaches are more lucrative than ever. The market demands it. And what the market wants, the market gets—no matter what the cost.

“When we signed Lovie Smith, it was a market-value contract for coaches who had never been a head coach in the NFL," said Ted Phillips before the Super Bowl. “He received a fair deal.”

No one can blame the Bears for defending Lovie’s current contract—it was, at the time it was signed, a “fair deal." But that was three seasons ago, and the current market value for a young head coach with Super Bowl credentials is somewhere in the range of $4-6 million per season. If Phillips wants to fall back on the “market value” argument, he's digging himself a hole.

In any event, facts are still facts. As of this week, only a month after the Super Bowl, talks between Smith and the Bears are all but dead. And Chicago fans, once again, have been left to wonder whether management will let money come before the good of their team.

“Lovie Smith has indicated to me he wants to be head coach of the Bears for a long time,” Phillips said. “That’s my goal. That’s the organization’s goal.”

If this is true—and forgive me, as a Chicago sports fan, if I tend to question the integrity of such statements—then why balk at paying Smith what the market states he should be paid?

The answer, of course, has to do with profits, and with the fact that the McCaskeys don't want to open their wallets any more than they absolutely have to. It's the same old story in the Windy City, where at least one fan can't keep it any longer:

PAY THE MAN WHAT HE'S WORTH AND STOP BEING GREEDY FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIVES!

After all: Enough is enough, right?

Chicago Bears in Review for 2006

It is a moment I would like to forget.

With just twelve minutes remaining in the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XLI, the Chicago Bears, down 22-17 to the Indianapolis Colts, lined up for a first down play on their own 38-yard line.

Quarterback Rex Grossman took a step back from the line, pump-faked to his right, and then threw a wobbly ball off his back foot into the waiting hands of Colts’ cornerback Kelvin Hayden.

Hayden, who had just intercepted his first pass of the season, proceeded to weave his way through the Bears offense on his way to the game-clinching touchdown.

At that moment, Chicago’s inhabitants fell eerily silent, as the dreams of winning our first Super Bowl in 21 years were shattered.

“The whole year our thing has been to finish (games),” linebacker Hunter Hillenmeyer said after the game, “And that’s exactly what we didn’t do.”

For most Bears’ fans, the shock and depression of losing the Super Bowl has mostly worn off. However many are still haunted by the visions of that dreadful fourth quarter. It is that visualization that has some Chicago fans lying awake at night. I’ll admit, for the week following the Super Bowl, I was one of the sleepless.

Nevertheless one can only pout for so long, and I eventually began pondering over the amazing season of the 2006 Chicago Bears.

Has there ever been a quarterback who has undergone as much intense media scrutiny in one season as Rex Grossman did in 2006?

Most quarterbacks in their first full year of starting would have crumbled under that type of pressure. Yet Grossman stood firm, never made excuses for himself, and went about his business in a professional manner. Imagine how Ryan Leaf would have reacted after fielding the 478th question about Brian Griese.

Whether you think he’s the next Brett Favre or the next Elvis Grbac, there is no denying Grossman played a big part in the development of the Bears’ offense this season. Chicago ended the 2005 season ranked 29th in total offense, 31st in passing offense, and 26th in points scored. This season, the Bears ranked 15th in total offense, 14th in passing offense, and 2nd in points scored. That is a marked improvement over the span of only one season and much of that had to do with the play of Rex Grossman.

I’ll admit he was awful at times, but his 23 touchdown passes were the most by any Bears’ quarterback since Erik Kramer threw 29 in 1995. Grossman’s inconsistency is maddening but one can only hope that he continues to develop and push this offense in the right direction.

An enhanced receiving corps, led by the speedy Bernard Berrian, also contributed to Chicago’s strong offensive output. Berrian caught 51 passes for 775 yards and 6 touchdowns in his first season as a starter. His 15.2 receiving average was 20th best in the NFL. The Bears utilized his blazing speed to stretch opposing defenses and open up underneath routes for possession receiver Muhsin Muhammad (60 catches, 863 yards, 5 touchdowns) and resurgent tight end Desmond Clark (45 catches, 626 yards, 6 touchdowns). It was a downfield passing attack, that when clicking, was one of the best in the league.

The running game was just what you would expect from a Chicago Bears team: relentless. Thomas Jones was their bread and butter, carrying the ball 296 times and gaining over 1,200 yards for the second straight season. Former 1st round pick Cedric Benson played a much bigger role this year, gaining 647 yards and scoring 6 touchdowns. His bruising, downhill running style complemented the shifty Jones nicely.

Chicago’s newfound offensive balance was augmented by the great field position given to them by return man Devin Hester. Hester ranked 2nd in the NFL in punt returns average and set a single-season record with 6 kicks returned for a touchdown – none more important than his game-winner on Monday Night Football against the Arizona Cardinals. He then added one more return touchdown on the opening kickoff of the Super Bowl. For those reasons, Devin Hester is my pick for the 2006 MVP of the Chicago Bears.

Just like last season, the Bears’ defense was the key to the team’s success. Brian Urlacher and company were absolutely dominant in the first half of the season, ranking 1st in nearly every defensive category. Their amazing team speed and hunger for turnovers has become a staple of the cover 2 system Lovie Smith has installed in Chicago.

However, losing two Pro Bowl players to season ending injuries – safety Mike Brown in Week 6 and tackle Tommie Harris in Week 13 –severely crippled the defense heading into the playoffs. One can only wonder how their presence on the field might have affected the outcome of the Super Bowl.

The biggest issue for the defense moving forward is the unrestricted free agent status of weak-side middle linebacker Lance Briggs. The Bears are $16.3 million under the salary cap heading into next season. This should give them enough money to sign Briggs to a long-term contract. If the two sides cannot reach a contract agreement, the Bears still have the option of placing the franchise tag on their second leading tackler. Either way, the Bears need to do whatever it takes to keep Briggs on the team. He has the ability to hit the gaps and stop runners in their tracks. Obviously this is a key element to this defense’s success.

Heading into the draft, it is imperative that the Bears select an offensive tackle early. John Tait and Fred Miller are savvy veterans who still have a good year or two left in them. Although they are 32 and 34 years old respectively, and no one behind them on the depth chart is ready to step in and produce.

Two offensive tackles in this year’s draft stand out as great fits for Chicago’s system. Joe Staley of Central Michigan is a converted tight end that runs the 40-yard dash in 4.81 seconds – outrageously fast for a 6’5”, 296-pound offensive lineman. His speed and range would work well in Chicago’s pull and trap-heavy rushing attack.

Tony Ugoh of Arkansas would also be a nice pick for the Bears. He has good size (6’5”, 301 lbs.) and a powerful upper body that he uses to drive defenders off the ball. His athleticism at left tackle would provide some much-needed backside protection for the lead-footed Grossman.

The final off-season concern for the Bears' front office is to upgrade the salary of their egregiously under-paid head coach Lovie Smith. Smith is in the final year of a four-year contract that pays him $1.3 million a year – the lowest salary of any head coach in the NFL. He was named Coach of the Year last season and brought this franchise back to the Super Bowl – a place they had not been in 21 years. He is a class act and one of the best football minds in the game. It is time the Bears' front office stepped up and paid the man what he is worth. They’ve waited too long as it is.

Overall, don’t expect many changes for the Chicago Bears next season; their schemes and personnel will remain pretty similar to that of this year. As was proven this season, the Bears have a winning formula in place, so don’t be surprised if you see them playing in Super Bowl XLII.

Memphis Tigers: Powerhouse Program or Product of Relocation?

It all started two years ago.

In 2004, the ACC began pulling high-visibility basketball programs away from the Big East, who then responded by grabbing four of the top teams from Conference USA.

C-USA then lost three more squads to the A-10 and Mountain West and was left scrambling for replacements. They recruited seven teams from the MAC and WAC in an effort to restore their depleted talent pool -- with little success.

In the wake of this conference jumble, C-USA, a once proud basketball conference that many put on par with the Big 10 and SEC, is now left with a group of low-tier mid-major squads -- and Memphis.

Memphis University, currently ranked No. 8 in the AP poll, is the only team left in C-USA worth talking about for longer than it takes Bruce Pearl to take his shirt off. Replacing top-tier programs like Louisville, Cincinnati and DePaul with Central Florida, Rice and Tulsa has made C-USA no more powerful than the Colonial Athletic Association or the Big West Conference -- perennially among the worst conferences in the country. That leaves many wondering whether or not Memphis is worthy of such a lofty No. 8 ranking.

On paper, the 19-3 Tigers look to be a team that can make it deep into the NCCA Tournament. They are 9-0 in C-USA and are beating their conference foes by an average margin of 16.3 points. In addition, they have not lost a game since 2006 and are currently in the hunt for a No. 2 seed in this year's tournament.

However, look closer and you'll see a team made of smoke and mirrors, a team that has everyone fooled, and it all began last season.

Using their No. 1 seed in the 2006 NCAA Tournament, Memphis advanced to the Elite 8 by defeating Oral Roberts, Bucknell and Bradley -- three mid-major squads. When it came time to face an opponent from one of the six major conferences (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, Big East, and Pac-10) though, the Tigers crumbled, losing to UCLA 50-45.

Their dreams of a Final Four berth were destroyed by one of the best teams in the country, but look at how Memphis made it to that position in the first place: they beat up on a weak, mid-major conference during the regular season and then beat three more mid-majors in the first rounds of the tournament. Not exactly a "stocked" resume.

That brings us to the current Memphis squad.

In week eight of this season, the Tigers, coming off a road loss to Arizona, were ranked No. 22 in the country. With losses to Tennessee, Georgia Tech, and the aforementioned Wildcats, Memphis' record stood at 8-3.

Since then, the Tigers have won 11 straight, rising steadily up the rankings along the way. But 9 of those 11 wins have come in conference play (the other two wins were against Middle Tennessee State and Lamar) -- thus the conundrum.

After having its member teams mixed up like a cage of bingo balls, C-USA's current average RPI ranking (sans Memphis) is 160.8. In simpler terms, the measurement system employed by the NCAA to determine the merit of all 336 Division I teams states that the 11 other schools of C-USA are better than only half of the programs in the entire country.

To further the point, here is a brief list of teams currently ranked higher than 160 on the RPI scale: San Francisco (8-15), Western Michigan (9-13), Charlotte (9-12), Utah (8-14) and Temple (9-12).

Yet Memphis, a team that is afforded the luxury of beating up on this lack of competition and is only 1-2 versus teams ranked in the top 25, is able to climb 14 spots in the rankings to No. 8.

How is this possible?

Yes, Memphis sits at No. 9 on the RPI scale, but their strength of schedule is ranked 48th in the country -- the worst of any top 10 RPI team. They may be 19-3, but what would their record be if they played in the ACC or Big 12?

Even their coach, the venerable John Calipari, knows his team is far and above the rest of the competition in C-USA. After a 72-59 win against Tulsa, Calipari said, "To get guys to understand to play harder than the guys they are playing against, especially if they think they are better, is a tough challenge. My thing is we need to compete against us and not the other team."

I'm not implying that Memphis is a mediocre squad, but should a top 10 ranking be distributed to a team whose coach openly admits that the competition within the division doesn't stack up -- to the point where he has to challenge his team to get better internally because their opponents are so over-matched?

I say "no."

Everyone was impressed when Seinfeld character Cosmo Kramer bragged of his dominance over his karate class… until they found out he was punching and kicking his way past a group of 10-year-olds.

So why should we take Memphis seriously, when it is clear they are grown men beating up on children?

What About Bob Knight?

Among the stories-of-the-moment in college basketball—the watered-down mid-majors, the fall of the Big East, the overabundance of star freshmen—Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight is little more than an afterthought.

Sure he’s won more games than anyone else in the history of the game—but as soon as he broke the record, the country stopped paying attention. Had he won his 880th game at Indiana, we may have taken a little more time to honor arguably the greatest coach to ever bark orders in front of the scorer’s table.

But Bob Knight doesn’t coach the Hoosiers any more. He’s down in Lubbock, Texas, trying his best to get back to the tournament he once dominated.

Texas Tech basketball doesn’t garner a fraction of the attention that Indiana hoops do. There are no candy-striped warmup pants and time-tested traditions; no championship expectations from deep-pocketed boosters; no blue-chip recruits lining up for scholarship offers; and certainly no movies named after the school’s mascot starring Gene Hackman.

At Texas Tech there is Bob Knight—and not much more.

And that's precisely why coach Knight deserves to be recognized for the job he's doing with the Red Raiders.

There’s no questioning Knight’s body of work (three national championships and an Olympic gold medal), but we live in a “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?” society. Truth be told, it’s been awhile since coach Knight has done anything of significance—unless you consider his constant theatrics and opprobrious penchant for groping his players around the neck "significant."

But forget for one second the yelling, the chair throwing, the choking incidents, and the whip. Forget the contentious press conferences and the plaid sports blazers. Forget the inglorious dismissal from Indiana and the subsequent war of words in the media...and focus, for one moment, on the current Red Raiders team.

At 15-7, and having lost two straight games, Tech isn't a frontrunner for the national championship, or even a likely candidate to crack the Top 25. But look closer and you’ll find a squad with a dearth of top-line talent that has recently beaten then #5 Kansas and #6 Texas A&M back-to-back. Tech has won road games against Arkansas and an underrated Kansas State team, and they are 4-2 in the Big 12—arguably the toughest conference in the country. They've accomplished all that with only one big-name player (Jarrius Jackson) and a host of kids who will never sniff the NBA.

So how are they doing it?

With sound fundamentals—the staple of any Knight-coached team.

Knight has instilled in his group of upperclassmen the sort of discipline and skills with which talent-starved teams upset powerhouse programs. Tech runs his motion offense to perfection, wearing down opponents by forcing them to chase Red Raiders all over the floor.

“We haven’t seen a motion offense as well organized,” said Texas A&M coach Billy Gillispie after his team’s 70-68 loss to the Raiders. “It is the master offense and the master does a great job of doing it.”

Kansas coach Bill Self also had high praise for Tech’s offense.

“We knew we were going to have to defend the entire shot clock,” he said. “That’s who they are. Their patience was certainly much, much better than our impatience.”

Self added, “We didn’t play our best but I think Texas Tech had a lot to do with that. They executed well for about a 10-minute stretch there in the second half superbly.”

Execution when it counts has been a winning recipe for Knight for the past 40 years. His team may not be as exciting as, say, North Carolina—but you will be hard-pressed to find a more prepared and motivated group of athletes, night-in and night-out, than the one under Coach Knight’s watch.

It is these often-overlooked intangibles that Bob Knight brings to every team he coaches. For that reason, even though you may not like him, he deserves your respect. He's done too much for college basketball to merit anything less.

Before Tech’s most recent game against the Texas Longhorns, Knight presented a plaque to Texas coach Rick Barnes as a token of gratitude for the kind words Barnes expressed after Knight’s 880th win. It was an emotional scene, one Barnes will not soon forget.

“I'm just overwhelmed by it,” he said. “When it comes from a man that is the best coach in what we do, it just means the world to me.”

The best coach in what he does? Yeah, Rick, that sounds about right.

21 Years I've Waited. This Better Be Worth It.

I was eight years old the last time this happened. It was January 26, 1986 and my grandparents had the entire family over for the game. We sat in their living room, a bunch of us crowding the couch, a few on the edge of the end table, and the rest on the floor, munching away on cookies grandma had made in the shape of football players...blue and orange frosting only. We watched one of the greatest and most entertaining teams in the history of football dismantle an overmatched Patriots team clad in bright red. My grandfather sat in his crusty lazy boy, wash rags under his elbows in place of long forgotten arm rest covers, leading the cheers.

"Super Bowl, Super Bears," he roared in a voice much too deep for his squat, graying frame.

"Super Bowl, Super Bears." And we all cheered along.

The 46-10 drubbing of the Patriots in Super Bowl XX was the highlight of the decade for every Chicago sports fan. Subsequent Bears teams -with the same basic players and coaches - failed to live up to expectations and we stumbled into the 90s with a sour feeling in our collective gut. Even through six Bulls championships and a recent White Sox title, the city of Chicago still pined for the days of McMahon, Singletary, Payton, and, of course, the almighty Ditka. We leaned on the memory of that season like a crutch whenever the Bears teams of the '90s became too much to handle. And up until a few days ago, I honestly wondered if I would see the Bears in the Super Bowl before I turned 40 (I'm 29).

Then it happened.

On a snowy Sunday afternoon in Soldier Field, amidst periodic snowfall and stinging winds, the Chicago Bears defeated the New Orleans Saints 39-14 in the NFC Championship Game. I watched the game with my wife in my apartment on the north side of Chicago. I collapsed from exhaustion on my couch as the final whistle blew, staring at the ceiling in disbelief. The Bears had just advanced to the Super Bowl and I laid in wait for the moment when someone would wake me from my dream. But as the minutes ticked it became obvious that I really was awake and that in two weeks I would be watching the Bears, my favorite of favorite teams, play in the Super Bowl for only the second time in my life.

And so I chanted, "Super Bowl, Super Bears," over and over, "Super Bowl, Super Bears," my fists pumping alternately in front of me, "Super Bowl, Super Bears," and in a small town three hours outside of Chicago, I was sure grandpa was doing the same thing.

Lovie Smith showed up three years ago, usurping the failed regime of Dick Jauron. He stated his first goal was to beat the Packers and his second was to win a Super Bowl. He accomplished the former in his first year with a new look defense that shut down Brett Favre. The cover-2 D continued to dominate the following season, helping lead the team to their first playoff berth in four years. It was a home game against the Carolina Panthers and Steve Smith ripped through the vaunted defense en route to a 28-21 upset. A home loss to a wild card team: Lovie vowed it wouldn't happen again.

As the Bears prepared for their home playoff game this year against Seattle, I wallowed in nervousness at the thought of another one-and-done playoff run. And damn if it almost didn't happen that way. The Bears gave up a lead in the 4th quarter to the Seahawks and my heart sunk. But two Robbie Gould field goals later, one the game-winner in overtime, and my worries were put off for another week.

Then came the Saints.

"Who dat? Who dat? Who dat say they gonna beat them Saints?"

The Bears, that's who dat. Chicago came roaring out of the gates against New Orleans, piling up 16 straight points in the first half. Two fumbles by the Saints gave the Bears great field position throughout the first two quarters, and a stifling defense held the explosive Saints offense to only 7 points. The second half started out ugly, with Reggie Bush's catch-and-run TD the low point. But just before the rookie needlessly dove into the end zone he pointed mockingly at a trailing Brian Urlacher. Like waking a sleeping giant, Bush's finger point served as the howling alarm that woke up the Bears defense. The Saints never scored again.

Not that they didn't have their chances. After a three-and-out on the Bears' next offensive series, the New Orleans offense drove into Bears territory before being forced into a field goal attempt. The Saints brought out their long field goal kicker, Billy Cundiff, whose kick couldn't traverse the cold winds and fell a yard short of the goal post. That was the closest they would come to scoring for the rest of the game.

After an awful intentional grounding penalty on Saints quarterback Drew Brees - where New Orleans was charged with a safety, making the score 18-14 - the Chicago offense decided that enough was enough and Rex Grossman, who had played poorly up until that point, began moving the ball with ease. He completed three stright passes and the Bears were soon in Saints territory. Then, on 1st and 10 at the New Orleans 33-yard line, Rex showed the skills that have kept him his job all season. As Hollis Thomas came storming through the middle of the Bears' offensive line with his mind set on drilling Grossman into the turf, Rex let fly a pass he'd thrown hundreds of times during the season. It was a deep pass to his left that floated high in the air while Bernard Berrian and 11-year veteran Fred Thomas jockied for position 30 yards down the field. The tight spiral came down like a gift into the waiting hands of a falling Berrian. It was one of the greatest catches I have ever seen. Touchdown.

As he rolled into the endzone to put the game away, I thought of my grandparents and how happy they must've been to see the Bears in the Super Bowl again. I thought of all the Chicago fans who have waited over two decades for this moment and of all the fans who wallowed through the bad years hoping that one day they'd see their team reach the biggest stage in all of sports. I felt a joy unlike any I'd felt before and I reveled in the mini-shock of pleasure my body was going through.

For the rest of that day and the one following, I walked around in a haze of excitement and happiness. You just couldn't get the smile off my face. And then a more sinister thought crept through the cloud of emotion my head had been swimming in. I thought of all the doubters who said the Bears didn't have a chance; of all the pundits and supposed "fans" who barbecued Rex throughout the season; I thought of the eight ESPN football "experts" who picked the Bears to lose that game; and for a second I felt sick.

"What if they lose the Super Bowl?" I thought.

The idea hadn't even occured to me before then and I tremored slightly at the pictures it pressed in my brain: of a dejected Lovie Smith hugging the victorious Tony Dungy at midfield; of Peyton Manning holding up the Championship trophy; of Brian Urlacher leaving the field with his chin touching his chest. It made me scared, nervous, and angry. And I realized that our NFC Champions have only one choice: win the damn game!

I've waited 21 years for this Bears, it better be worth it.