Bears look to shed NFC’s lack of respect, beat Indy

Let’s just get this out in the open – I don’t believe in the NFC, and you can’t make me…. Let’s just get this out in the open – I don’t believe in the NFC, and you can’t make me.

For one reason or another, it has been the inferior conference in the NFL for the last six-or-so seasons and that alone makes me wary of picking its champion. I mean I’ve seen more exciting games of Wii tennis than the yawner that was the NFC Championship two Sundays ago.

This year isn’t really all that different. Here are the Chicago Bears, clearly the best team in the NFC, yet we spend the two weeks in between the conference and world championships debating on where their quarterback ranks among the Super Bowl’s all-time worsts. Would you expect anything less from the NFC Champion?

I wouldn’t, but I am still expecting this Bears team to win on Sunday.

Few outside of Chicago think the Bears can win on Sunday for two reasons, the starting quarterback of each team. “Everybody Loves Peyton” graces CBS nearly every afternoon while Rex Grossman can’t take a crap without analysts trying to figure out how it went.

People want Peyton to win because his commercials make us chuckle, and they want the Bears to lose because no team with a starting quarterback that posted a 0.00 passer rating (2-for-12 passing for 33 yards and three interceptions) in the regular season finale – a loss to Green Bay – should be allowed to hoist such a glamorous prize, right Sure, it looks that way when focusing solely on the one calling signals, but there is a lot more going on than the quarterback battle.

Chicago didn’t go 15-3 entirely because the NFC has so few quality teams – this team can play. Nobody is going to argue against the Bears’ defense, which dominated the league’s statistics all season, even if Tommy Harris isn’t going to play. This is especially the case when stacking it up against the Colts’.

While Indianapolis has allowed fewer than half the rushing yards they were giving up heading into the playoffs, problems like not being able to stop the run can surface at any point. Remember the Jacksonville game where both Fred Taylor and Maurice Jones-Drew went for over 100 yards in the first half? How about the loss to the Texans where the almighty Ron Dayne went for over 130 and two touchdowns?

Yeah, this is old news, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth mentioning. We want to talk about Grossman’s inconsistency, but how about Indianapolis’ run defense, which could revert back to Swiss-cheese form at any point? Can we honestly believe that a team that struggled with something so mightily, to a point where it was what experts said would “keep them out of the Super Bowl,” can fix its problems in a few weeks?

The recent success might lend us to believe yes, but Chicago’s running game is on the upswing.

Consider Bear running back Thomas Jones. This guy wasn’t even supposed to have the best year in his family (his brother is Cowboys starter Julius Jones), let alone his own team (Cedric Benson was thought to be the starter). How has he responded to the doubters? Try rushing for more than 1,300 yards and eight touchdowns, four of those scores evenly spaced out between the two playoff wins. In the NFC Championship game, Jones went for 123 and two scores.

Benson’s recent added production has made Jones that much more effective, though. He went for 60 yards and a touchdown in the win over the Saints. In all, Benson is good for anywhere between 40 and 60 yards, meaning he and Jones are likely to form one 120-to-140-yard back.

The key to Chicago’s running is in its style, though. The Bears will wear you down with it, and that is tough on any defense, especially one as porous as the Colts’. When your line is pushing forward for three to four yards a pop, there isn’t as much pressure on “the worst quarterback ever.”

If the defense plays the way it is capable of playing, it will be just disruptive enough to keep the game close. Once the running game gets going, then suddenly the Bears stand a chance. Lovie Smith isn’t going to ask Grossman to do too much, but that doesn’t mean he won’t take shots down the field. Bernard Berrian becomes all the more dangerous if Nick Harper is either out or ineffective with an injury, and if Grossman hits only one of every three or four passes, one may as well be the deep ball.

It’s not as if Grossman can’t have a quality outing. He had seven games where his quarterback rating was better than 100, and he threw multiple touchdowns in each of those games – all Bears’ wins. The most dangerous thing about Chicago, though, is that the Bears have put up points even when Grossman has laid eggs on the field. This team finds a way to put points on the board, whether it be through the offense, defense or dynamic special teams unit led by Devin Hester.

None of this comes as any surprise, what with six to eight hours of Super Bowl hysteria dominating ESPN since before the matchup even formed. Chicago won’t win just because of its ability to run the ball or because of the Bears’ ferocious defense. Lovie Smith’s team will win because they will make Indy play ugly. Even when teams beat Chicago, they do it playing terrible football. The defense will be just disruptive enough to give the offense ample opportunities to not blow the game.

Picking against the Bears is as difficult as it is to pick them. If they were incapable of beating more talented teams they wouldn’t even be here; New Orleans would have gotten them two weeks ago. Chicago will find a way to win. The only question will be whether or not Rex Grossman finds a way to lose.