Playing spoiler
CHICAGO – The 1972 Dolphins can breathe a little easier. And once again, they can thank a current Miami team for it.
Although Dan Marino was nowhere to be found this Sunday, the Dolphins once again upset Chicago to spoil the Bears’ bid for a perfect season.
Ronnie Brown rushed for a career-high 157 yards and Jason Taylor forced a fumble and returned an interception 20 yards for a touchdown, helping Miami beat Chicago 31-13. Brown carried 29 times and eclipsed his previous career-high set last season against Carolina by 25 yards.
After hearing criticism from the media and members of the 1972 team, these Dolphins had their way with a team that had scored the most points and allowed the fewest. The defense constantly applied pressure as the Dolphins (2-6) snapped a four-game losing streak.
“A lot of (media) in this locker room and a lot of people in this country didn’t give us a chance,” Taylor said. “And I heard some of the crap that was said during the week – that questioned people’s character and everything else. You always want to handle everything with class, but sometimes you can’t. People come at you the wrong way, and it’s good sometimes to say, ‘How do you like me now?”’
Miami’s win removes another potential challenger to the 1972 Dolphins, the only team with a perfect record in NFL history. The Indianapolis Colts are the only unbeaten team after a 27-20 victory at New England on Sunday night.
The 7-0 start was the Bears’ best since the 1985 championship team won its first 12. The only loss that year, incidentally, was to Miami – when Marino threw three touchdowns and the Dolphins scored 38 points against one of the best defenses in NFL history on “Monday Night Football.”
The Bears lost wide receiver Bernard Berrian, their main deep threat, to a rib injury on their first possession and were buried beneath a pile of turnovers. Berrian said his ribs are not broken and the injury was not caused by a hit.
“I just fell on it kind of weird,” he said.
Tied with Baltimore for the league lead in takeaways (22) and differential (11) entering the game, Chicago committed four fumbles and lost three to go with Rex Grossman’s three interceptions.
Grossman was under pressure all day and was just 18 of 42 for 210 yards and a touchdown. The running game never got going, either, with Thomas Jones carrying 20 times for 69 yards.
And the schedule doesn’t get easier for Chicago the next three weeks, with games at the New York Giants, Jets and New England.
“If it doesn’t hurt, how important is winning?” Grossman said. “So it hurts bad. We’re 7-1, it hurts, we’re going to think about it for a couple of days, watch the tape and get better and then put everything in perspective of what’s out there for us to go get.”
Harrington, who was 16 of 32 for 137 yards with three touchdowns and two interceptions in his fourth start for the injured Daunte Culpepper, almost single-handedly kept the Bears in the game. He overthrew – and underthrew — open receivers, and had his pass picked off by Nathan Vasher late in the third quarter, leading to a 38-yard field goal by Robbie Gould that made it an eight-point game.
But Grossman was no better.
He threw his third interception just under two minutes into the fourth quarter. And on the next play, Harrington connected with a leaping Chris Chambers for a 24-yard touchdown and a 28-13 lead.