Underdog is here
MIAMI – The temperature in Chicago felt like it was near zero Sunday when the Bears boarded their charter flight to Super Bowl XLI.
Of course, that was nothing compared to the icy reception the NFC champions feel they have gotten from the rest of the country this season.
That’s why the Bears (15-3) touched down in Miami feeling like America’s least-favorite team and nothing but supporting players in what likely will be the Peyton Manning show this week. They are seven-point underdogs to the Indianapolis Colts, and they wouldn’t be surprised if the line gets bigger.
As far as they can tell, nobody anywhere is giving them a chance to win.
“We’ve been in this role all year for some reason, and rightfully so,” Bears coach Lovie Smith said. “We’re playing the Colts and they have a lot of weapons. I can see why we’re in that underdog role.
“I have a harder time seeing how we’ve been in an underdog role all year with our record. All the obstacles that have been put in front of us, we’ve met them. Now here’s a stage where we if we can finish the job one more time, we will get that respect we think we deserve.”
That’s why the Bears’ motto this week is the same one they have had since the beginning of training camp, and it’s plastered on signs all over their Super Bowl headquarters at the Miami Airport Hilton. The one-word slogan - “Finish” - is a reminder that no matter what they think they have accomplished this season, there’s still more work to be done.
“After last year’s playoff loss we had to come up with something,” Smith said. “As I look at all the things we were able to accomplish last year, the one thing we didn’t get done is to finish the season on a high note. So coming into this season, it seemed fitting to have that as our word.
“And we’ve finished a lot of football games. That’s the one thing I can say about this football team has been able to do. We’ve played a lot of close games, but somehow we find a way to pull it out. Now we have one more step for us to say, `It’s a job well done.’”
That won’t be easy. The Colts not only boast the NFL’s No. 2 offense (the Saints, beaten by the Bears in the NFC Championship Game, were No. 1), but in Manning they have a player most acknowledge as one of the greatest quarterbacks ever to play the game. Smith was reminded of that on the plane ride down here as he read the Colts’ media guide.
It sounded like he needed almost the whole trip to read the Manning entry.
“I looked at 18 pages of Peyton Manning,” Smith said. “That kind of tells you what we have in store.”
The Bears’ defense is aware of the task, too - “Only 18 pages?” linebacker Brian Urlacher said. “That’s it?” - but it’s a challenge it’s eager to face.
“He will be, numbers-wise, the best of all-time when he’s finished playing, so it’s a big challenge for our defense,” Ulracher said. “But we’re happy to meet that challenge. We have a good game plan.”
“He’s smart,” cornerback Charles Tillman said of Manning. “But I like to think that we’re pretty smart, too.”
In other words, maybe no one else is giving the Bears a chance to win, but they think they have a pretty good one. They have been talking about winning a Super Bowl since the first day of training camp, according to Ulracher.
“We actually talked about that more this year than we had in the past,” he said, “because we felt like we had the team to do it.”
Now that they’re finally here, they just have to finish the job they started - no matter what the oddsmakers and experts think.
“Whether you’re the underdog or you’re supposed to win the game, I don’t think that matters,” Tillman said. “Last week when we played the Saints, out of 21 analysts, 18 picked the Saints. They said Rex (Grossman, the QB) was going to have a horrible game. They said the defense was going to let Reggie Bush run through them.
“So I think we have tuned out the whole thing.”