It was a cold and dreary November afternoon, the sort that puts one in mind of Thanksgiving Day football: muddy fields and messy uniforms, players like Alex Karras and Dick Butkus, Mike Lucci and Doug Buffone, Charlie Sanders and Walter Payton, Mel Gray and Mike Singletary. Something between rain and snow was falling, a sort of airborne slush, but what really made the day seem traditional in the extreme was that the Bears entered Sunday’s game at Soldier Field with a record of 4-7, the Detroit Lions with a record of 5-6–mediocre both, just like in the old days. So we stayed in and watched the game on television; we would no more have missed it than we would turn down a second helping of turkey and stuffing.
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So we dutifully sat down to watch the Bears Sunday, even going so far as to turn down the sound on the TV and turn on the radio to WGN to get the Bears’ partisan play-by-play, and we were immediately welcomed to a good old-fashioned National Football Conference Central Division battle. From the opening kickoff, both teams seemed to be spoiling for a fight; the hitting was severe and did not always end at the whistle. Ghosts of Butkus, Lucci, Karras, and Buffone lingered in the air like tribal Americans in that chestnut poem the Tribune no longer publishes. Yet there were a couple of noteworthy violations of convention. For one thing, the field, while slick and soggy, held firm. The uniforms got soiled but not muddy, and not exactly grass stained. They grew a dingy, pale green color, sort of the shade of green ink that’s run on a note left out in the rain. It took WGN’s Wayne Larrivee to point out that the grass stains were actually green paint stains, acquired from a field that had received a little cosmetic enhancement before the game. It was akin to discovering that a nice, moist turkey was actually one of those idiot-proof brands injected with broth at the factory.
Coach Dave Wannstedt has come in for his share of criticism this year for overestimating the Bears’ talent and depth, but the timid, unimaginative, and seemingly ill-prepared game plans of offensive coordinator Ron Turner have been at least equally responsible for the team’s woes. Bill Walsh, the old coach of the San Francisco 49ers, used to arrive for a game prepared with a 25-play sequence that he believed would work, judging from his study of the opponents’ weaknesses. The first play, especially, was almost certain to succeed, thus getting his team and his quarterback off to a confident start. The game with the Lions was the first time this year that Turner seemed to have come to the game with such a play.
Remarkably, it was still only the first quarter. This was not the typical Central Division mud-wrestling contest. The wide-open, west-coast style of play suited Krieg, the cagey old Seattle Seahawks castoff (and Lions castoff to boot), and he was having his best game since replacing the injured Erik Kramer early in the season. Krieg is relatively short and dumpy by the standards of NFL quarterbacks. His shoulder pads seem large, like the pads on a pee-wee leaguer, and his helmet is relatively small and snug, which makes him seem doubly diminutive. He drove the Bears again to within striking range, and hit Conway in the end zone on another post pattern. This time, however, two Lions were there to lower the boom, and Conway dropped the ball. Yet again, Turner came up with an unstoppable play on third down. He lined up three wide receivers to the right and Timpson to the left, to assure Timpson single coverage, then Krieg hit Timpson on a simple slant-in for first and goal. A couple of plays later, Krieg spun out of a blitz and hit a diving Engram with a touchdown pass to complete a 13-play, 73-yard drive.
Talk about winning ugly: the Lions looked awful in their white road uniforms, dyed a sickly green by the sodden turf, and Wannstedt looked even worse. He had to find a hat to keep the mixed snow and rain out of his face, but the best he could come up with was a Bears cap with the brim bent over the right eyebrow, apparently salvaged from the bottom of some equipment bag. Still, the game ended with him looking up at the clock for the first time in weeks without that too-familiar pained, whipped-dog expression on his face. There’s something to be said for the right kind of mediocre. Better the steady overachieving of Wannstedt’s Bears than the erratic underachieving of Fontes’s Lions. It’s less damaging to the appetite when they lose, and when they actually play well and show some moxie, well, it’s a double scoop of whipped cream on a piece of pumpkin pie. Where the coaches themselves are concerned, it means Fontes is now bound for the slaughterhouse, while Wannstedt will live to feast another year.
