Chicago Bears:

In Lovie They Trust

The Chicago Bears are one of the teams that have always showed the league to play football the “right way.” One of the oldest franchises in the National Football League, team has always been characterized by their smash mouth style of play with a strong, punishing defense and a running game that cannot be stopped. The Bears have had guys like Walter Payton, Dick Butkus, Mike Singletary, William “Refrigerator” Perry, Mike Ditka, George Blanda, Harold “Red” Grange, Bronko Nagurski and Gayle Sayers. The “Monsters of the Midway” defense perfectly personified the Chicago Bears franchise and the blue collar town they play in. This style of play propelled them into a Super Bowl wins during the 1985 season. That team was lead by their Hall of Fame tailback Walter Payton and former tight end turned coach Mike Ditka. Payton would eventually go on to hold the National Football League’s most sacred record of career rushing yards with 16,726 yards. When he retired he held 16 NFL records the rushing record would be broken by the Dallas Cowboy’s Emmitt Smith during the 2002 season. Ditka led the Bears with the same fire he played with and it turned into 112 wins, six NFC Central titles, three NFC championship games and Chicago’s lone Super Bowl. The 1985 Super Bowl win was spun off into a hilariously bad single and music video called the “Super Bowl Shuffle” where each one of the team’s stars took a turn trying to raping about how they love to dance and things of that nature. The song featured lines like “We ain’t here to start any trouble, we’re just here to do the Super Bowl Shuffle,” and a solo from Sweetness that will never be forgotten.

The Bears of late haven’t had the chance to do the Super Bowl Shuffle. They’ve only been able to do the NFC Central Championship Shuffle twice since 1990. The last time the team made the playoffs was in 2001 when they finished the season with a 13-3 record. The Bears had a first round bye and faced off against the Philadelphia Eagles in the second round and were dismissed by the Eagles 33-19. Since 2001 the team has gone 11-21 and hasn’t taken another sniff at the playoffs causing coach Dick Jauron to get his walking papers last season.

In the off-season the Bears had a great deal of help to find from top to bottom. They went out and got defensive guru Lovie Smith to lead the Bears back to doing the Championship Cha-Cha. The Bears then went out and picked up free agents like running back Thomas Jones and offensive tackle John Tait to help solidify an otherwise flimsy running attack.

In the draft the Bears made out rather well by picking up a number of guys that will help plug up some holes they had on the defensive side of the ball during the 2003 season. They will also fit the mold that coach Smith likes to see in his defenders. The first pick the Bears made was Oklahoma defensive tackle Tommie Harris, who is said to be the “prototypical Lovie Smith defensive tackle.” Harris is a big, strong, kid that is incredibly fast and never gives up on a play. The team also drafted Washington defensive tackle Terry Johnson, Fresno State wide receiver Bernard Berrian, and Texas cornerback/return specialist Nathan Vasher. These players should be the foundation that the organizastion needs to sell Bears tickets and push the team back into the playoff mix. There is not much to be said about the Bears offense in 2003 other than that they have a great deal of room to improve. They finished 29th overall in passing and 29th overall in total defense. The Bears hope that throwing Thomas Jones into the back field will help take the burden off of sophomore quarterback Rex Grossman and he can start producing like he did in the swamps of Florida.

The Bears defense, on the other hand, was very tough in 2003. They finished 9th in rushing defense and 12th in total defense in the NFL. Rookie defensive tackles Harris and Johnson should help All-NFL linebacker Brian Urlacher to return to his 2001 form.

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