Bears Win Away in Tampa Bay

The Bears win streak is now at 7 games with today's 13-10 win over the Buccaneers in Tampa, however, it wasn't the 44-0 blowout hoped for here . Thanks to Mark Potash of the Sun Times for reminding me of that great day in 1985 when the Bears showed the world they were for real with the 44-0 clobbering of America's team, the Dallas Cowboys. Going into today's game, I was feeling that this Bears team resembled the '85' Bears much more than the '01' Bears did.

After whipping up on the Carolina Panthers last week, the Bears defense came in to today's game with the best defense in the NFL. They picked up today where they left off last week. On the first Buccaneer possession, Alex Brown forced quarterback Chris Simms to fumble on the Bucs own goal line. On the first play after the change of possession, Kyle Orton came out and threw the 1 yard touchdown pass to tight end John Gilmore. The Bears were on their way to win number 7 in a row.

If this Bear team would like to be compared to the '85' Bears in the one area that is actually relevant (World Champions), lets take a quick look at where they need the greatest improvement -- the offense. Let me start by saying that I like Kyle Orton a lot. As a rookie, he has stepped up and performed admirably. However, after cruising for something like 37 offensive possessions without surrendering a touchdown (this is remarkable), the inevitable happened, and Mike Alstott (I would never wish to be the person asked to try to tackle this beast) barreled into the end zone in the 4th quarter. What the Bears needed most here was to get the ball back and score -- touchdown or field goal -- it didn't matter. What did matter was the feeling that the Bears were allowing the Bucs back into the game (their last two wins were 4th quarter come from behind wins). In their next possession, the Bears were forced to punt after Orton was called for intentional grounding.

A Bears scoring drive following the Bucs touchdown would have gone a long way towards shifting the game's momentum back in favor of the Bears. A scoring drive would have also shown that this team can go punch for punch with any team in the league. Fortunately, as mentioned before, the Bears have the best defense in the NFL and were able to secure the Bears victory (with a little help from Buccaneer kicker Matt Bryant who missed what would have been a game tying field goal from 29 yards). While the missed field goal was reminiscent of the '01' Bears type of win (they had shamrocks flying out of their butts that year), Ogunleye game ending sack brought me back where I wanted to be -- 1985.

This team has what it takes to go more than one deep into the post season. The Bears defense has made this the 8-3 team that it is. Its time for the offense to step up and put more points on the board.

Whack-a-Mole