Brian Urlacher is everywhere, the Bears defensive
"Greatest show on turf"
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Bears find there’s no place like Dome… put on the “Greatest Show on Turf” 42-27 Bears
by Dan Peters & Tim Ebert
Monday night, the Chicago Bears earned a first round “Bye” in the playoffs with the impressive show ..
It was the Bears offense and special teams that put on the “Greatest Show on Turf” this game. There seemed to be more Bears fans in attendance than Ram’s Fans , with the constant chant: “Let's Go Bears,'' .. and the Bears looked right at home in the dome in St. Louis.
Rex Grossman demonstrated poise and confidence Monday night. He completed 13 of 23 passes for 200 yards with 2 touchdowns, no turnovers and wasn’t sacked during Monday night’s 42-27 rout win. His 114.4 passer rating was a 113.1-point improvement over his previous game against the Vikings.
Prior to Monday night, the former Florida QB had committed 18 turnovers in seven games. None tonight.
Goal Line Defense
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Grossman engineered touchdown drives of 74, 94, 74 and 55 yards Monday night, capping two of the possessions with TD passes of 34 yards to Bernard Berrian and 14 yards to Muhammad.
“I was proud of him because it takes a lot to be able to take the shots that he took from the fans and media,” said receiver Mushin Muhammad “The easiest time to get kicked is when you’re down. But he fought through it and handled it like a pro. He maintained his composure. He went out and played football.”
“It says he’s a pro,” Olin Kreutz said of the quarterback’s resurgence. “All NFL guys go through that. When you’re first a starter, you hit a wall. Teams study you and they learn how to beat you and you go through three or four weeks of hard times.
“But Rex is a starting quarterback on a Super Bowl contender, so he gets a lot more criticism than most young guys would get. But he’s a great player and a great quarterback and we believe in him.”
The key to Grossman’s success Monday night…reacting to the Rams defense. “Rex is a really good football player,” said offensive coordinator Ron Turner. “He got in a little bit of a slump and got out of sync a little bit. He wasn’t really reading things like he was earlier and that’s all he had to do. It was really simple. He had to get back to reading everything and trusting everything and believing what he saw. He did it all week in practice and he did a good job of it (Monday night).”
Robbie
Gould misses only his second field goal of the season
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Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc.“He didn’t try to do too much,” said the offensive coordinator. “He just ran the offense. When the plays were there to be made, he made them. Throwing the ball, the physical stuff and the accuracy and all that really hasn’t been a problem. He missed a couple last week that he should have had, but I have never been around a quarterback that didn’t miss some. It was more the decision-making and the decisiveness.”
Grossman focused on how his performance helped other members of the offense and the support he received from Smith and his staff. “I’m just happy for my teammates and my coaches,” Grossman said after the Bears improved to 11-2, matching their victory total from last season. “For my teammates, just allowing them to make plays and to have fun
and move the ball as an offense. Obviously, I wanted to respond the way the coaches were backing me and everything like that.”
“It was a good win. It’s tough to win on the road and it felt
really good to play well again and to get out of a slump and play efficiently, and that’s what I tried to do from the get-go.”
Turner told reporters that he never saw Rex lose his confidence even while being the target of widespread criticism during his recent slump.
“If it got down it didn’t show,” Turner said. “Rex has a lot of confidence and he believes in himself. I think he knew everyone in that locker room believed in him, too, so I think that kept him going and he just tried to block out everything on the outside.
No matter what people on the outside were saying and believed,
I think he knew that we all believed in him.”
Devin Hester returned two kickoffs for touchdowns and set yet another record for the Bears this year. The second-round draft pick this year, Hester also has three punt return touchdowns and ran back a missed field goal 108 yards against the Giants to tie the longest play in NFL history. (another Bears record) Prior, he'd returned only six kickoffs all year before his historic romps. Impressive indeed.
Hester struggled to find a position in college at Miami, but he's been a sensation with the ball in his hands on kick returns for the Bears. With the Bears trailing 6-0 in the second quarter, Hester returned a kickoff 94 yards for a touchdown. Then, in the fourth quarter, he scored on a 96-yard kickoff return. His six return touchdowns this season, is a new NFL record.
Hester became the sixth player in NFL history to return two kickoffs for touchdowns in a game. With his 94-yarder early in the second quarter, the second-round pick gave the Bears a 7-6 lead and set a league record with five combined kick return TDs this season.
A lot of us knew that he was a special kid,” Mushin Muhammad said after Monday night’s nationally televised game. “But I think the whole world had a chance to see that tonight, that this guy’s got some special talent.
“He’s going to have a great career, whatever position he decides to play other than returning kicks. And if he wants to make a living out of that, he can revolutionize the game.”
The Bears running game was firing on all cylinders. All three Bears running backs contributed to Monday night’s win. Thomas Jones rushed for 76 yards on 11 carries including a 30-yard TD run, Cedric Benson had 64 yards on 16 attempts and Adrian Peterson had a 1-yard TD run and a 32-yard reception that set up another touchdown. “We challenged the offensive line and the rest of the crew to get the running game going,” Smith said. “I thought that the guys did a great job with that. The line blocked well. Cedric Benson and Thomas Jones both had excellent games running the football and we got some good
plays from Adrian Peterson coming in.”
Notes from Monday’s game:
Bulger finished 34-for-55 for 356 yards, three touchdowns and one interception ...
Jackson, the NFC leader in yards from scrimmage, gained 139 against Chicago, giving him 1,789 for the season ...
Rams LB Pisa Tinoisamoa broke his right hand in the second quarter. He's been playing with a broken left hand and a dislocated left elbow that has forced him into a harness ...
Rams DE Leonard Little injured his throat.
The NFC North champions (11-2) clinched a bye for the first week of the playoffs.
Next up for the Bears… The Tampa Bay Bucaneers at Soldier Field.
St
Louis Rams Cheerleaders... Oh where are the Honey
Bears when you need them?
Bears when you need them?
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Suburban Journals of Chicago Inc.
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