Best reward for Bears' win: Cooking up pressure
December 24
Chicago Tribune columnist David Haugh
"The NFL is a copycat league. Thus it wasn't a surprise when Vikings coach Brad Childress tried to draw inspiration from Barack Obama, as Lovie Smith did earlier this year in invoking the famous Bears fan and president-elect.
Quoting Obama, Childress told reporters in Minnesota, "Our destiny won't be written for us, it will be written by us."
Profound, yes, but it's also a fitting metaphor to indicate how all things Chicago have crept inside the Vikings' heads this week.
Besides guaranteeing the Bears a winning season, Monday night's 20-17 overtime victory over the Packers put the playoff pressure squarely on the shoulders of the Vikings come Sunday. The Bears have none.
"They have to feel it now because we won," said Bears defensive end Alex Brown, one of Monday's heroes.
The Vikings still own the advantage in all NFC North tiebreakers. But you don't have to be swept up in Chicago's football frenzy to see the Bears carry a psychological edge over Minnesota into Week 17.
Every game-time decision will cause Childress to rethink whether it might be used as evidence to fire him if the Vikings come within one victory of the playoffs—again.
Every carry just got a little harder to handle for fumble-prone running back Adrian Peterson. Every pass just got a little harder to aim for newbie quarterback Tarvaris Jackson, who hasn't played in a game this big.
In four games after Dec. 17 over the last two seasons, all with playoff implications, the Vikings are 1-3. Think that might come up a few times over hot cocoa this week? Around Minneapolis, the only thing heavier than the burden the Vikings feel this week might be the snowfall.
Meanwhile, the Bears are 3-0 in December and will go back to practice Wednesday feeling like a team kissed by fate after winning back-to-back games in overtime. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, the last NFL team to pull that off also did it at Soldier Field, in 2001, when the Bears beat San Francisco and Cleveland in succession.
The Bears had enough fluky things go their way that season to get into the playoffs, and it's fair and natural to wonder if a similar pattern is developing.
Consider that in both overtime victories, neither opposing quarterback took the field in the extra period because the Bears won the toss and ultimately the game on the first possession. Thank you, NFL rule book.
Fittingly, the Bears won the coin flip when it bounced fortuitously off Brian Urlacher's helmet. It was the most heads-up play of the night for Urlacher.
When the Bears reported to Bourbonnais five months ago Wednesday, most honest souls at training camp would have acknowledged being thrilled by the prospect of this season coming down to the final Sunday. Now they want more.
"It's like when Lovie pointed out at halftime how far we had come so we can't let it get away now," Tommie Harris said."
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