I got my first football cards in 1976, the year after Walter Payton landed on the Chicago Bears. Through TV blackouts and snowy receptions, my dad and I followed the Bears as best we could. We missed one game in the early 1980s because of some church function (the game Green Bay’s Al Del Greco caught his own blocked field goal and ran for the winning touchdown). Sunday night local news was the capstone event, with highlights from the days game replayed before going to sleep. For my first live game, I got to see Dave Williams, the third-string fullback, run back a kickoff in Detroit for the shortest overtime in the history of the NFL. The Bears won the Super Bowl during my senior year, also my first fantasy league experience. My friends and I waited at the new Spring Hill mall’s Ticketmaster outlet in the freezing early morning hours for a chance at playoff tickets (which we got), and the big game itself was a two-story affair with all my friends dressed in orange and navy blue watching William Perry, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon et al shuffle to victory on two screens.
Relocation has made seeing Bears games more of a challenge. The Colts are a regular interference in getting a Chicago game televised here in Bloomington (until recently, the Bears’ record didn’t help, either). The reception is much better in this Cable Age, and Tivo allows me the luxury of stopping time for bedtime routines with the next generation of Bears fans. And if the game can’t be seen, it can still be watched via ESPN’s GameCast.
Last night, after a trip north to visit my mom for the holidays, I got to see a Tivo-assisted win. The Bears — my Bears — pummelled the Atlanta Falcons in a 16-3 victory. Only someone who can appreciate consecutive loss-of-yardage plays near the first-down marker will understand how a 13-point win can be considered a pummel. The defensive performance brought back memories of Wilbur Marshall running to the end zone to seal a pre-Super Bowl win over the Rams. Accompanied by teammates, Marshall streaked the length of the field on a turnover as it started to snow. The fans on hand that day (I was one of them) probably cheered the weather as much as the player. That was the atmosphere of this Atlanta game, featured on ESPN Sunday night.
Rex Grossman, a Bloomington native, was a big part of it all. Having spent his brief pro career on the injured list more than on the field, Rex has been an afterthought during this impressive season. Kyle Orton, a rookie and (yuck) Purdue alum, stepped in and held the ship steady in compiling a 9-4 record. The loss last week to Pittsburgh broke a streak of 8 straight wins and probably set the stage for Rex to resume his quarterbacking career if Orton was unable to generate offense. That is what happened, as head coach Lovie Smith went to Rex after halftime. Some 300 miles away (and OK, also some 52 minutes out of sync), I could almost hear Soldier Field erupt. Rex wound up with limited stats and even an interception, but those are just the numbers. The pick came on his first drive after he had already connected three times, and the Bears got the ball back on the same play to negate the turnover.
The Colts lost for the first time all year, but I’m still clinging to my October prediction of a Bears-Colts Super Bowl. Bears winning, of course.