Bears Super Bowl Hopes Are Slipping Away
Michael Cahill
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Bears Need to Correct Problems Before Miami Becomes Fantasy
The comparisons to the 85' Bears can stop. The 1985 bears had a swagger and an attitude and a defense that the 2006 Bears cannot boast.The 2006 Bears are atop the NFC and have home field advantage locked for the playoffs. That's a good thing, right? Certainly. The Bears don't want to have to go into New Orleans, the greatest home field advantage this season. But home field only gets you so far in the playoffs. What makes a champion
And it all starts with the quarter back. What should worry Bears fans about Grossman isn't so much the turnover but how they went about fixing them.
In the Monday night victory against St. Louis, Grossmans first solid performance in over a month, the Bears got him back on track by eliminating his ability to push the ball downfield. Now while it was great to see the Bears get back to running, most specifically to see good production from Cedric Benson and Adrian Peterson, but the Bears took away what made them look like world beaters early on.
Ron Turner, who is known around the league as an aggressive play-caller, is now being forced to calling 5 yard slants and 7 yard out patterns, instead of using the speed of Mark Bradley and Bernard Berrian to push the ball downfield and force defenses to lay off the run. Once defenses realize that the Bears are afraid to go deep it will affect the running game and the Bears will have to rely on Devin Hester to return punts all day.
And don't forget about that defense. What looked so dominant in September looks so fragile now. The loss of Pro-Bowl safety Mike Brown earlier this year hurt their run defense, and it's a problem that could show up against a good running team like Dallas or New Orleans.