Minnesota Vikings

Evidently the Bears have a different take on the NFL schedule from the other 31 teams in the league.

I think what's most irritating about Smith's comments about the season starting over with six games to go is that I'm not surprised, or even really all that angry. I mean, this is a team that can't even manage a game clock, so why should anyone expect them to know how to read a calendar?

Or maybe now is the time the Bears have decided to play like the team they claim to be - you know, the best team in the league. THAT'S what it is - the Bears have lulled the rest of the NFL in to thinking they're a delusional, overpaid, underachieving bunch of wasted talent, and now they can execute their master plan to show everyone who the best team in the NFL is!

Or maybe it's more of the same old mealy-mouthed crap.

I choose door number three, and if like me you think you've heard the beginning of this story before, you probably have a feeling the sequel is going to have a pretty similar ending too. The Bears are, in fact, 5-5 and tied for first in the brutally bad NFC North, but right now that's akin to being the prettiest Denny's waittress - not much of a compliment.

The Vikings and Packers are not without their flaws - remember, they're tied for the same sad-sack 5-5 record as the Bears are - but the Bears have simply not looked like a playoff-caliber team in the last three weeks, and remember, two of the Bears' five wins come against 0-9 Detroit.

Chicago's remaining schedule is the "easiest" amongst the three NFC North . . . "contenders", I guess is the word to describe the teams vying for the crown, but that's cold comfort given how badly the Bears have played. There's no such thing as a "gimme" win with this team, not in St. Louis, not anywhere.

If the Bears are to have any hope of making the playoffs, they need to put a good old-fashioned whipping on the Rams this weekend. A close victory over a team as bad as St. Louis is does nothing to prove the Bears are any kind of legitimate contender.

The Bears then visit Minnesota, host Jacksonville, New Orleans and Green Bay, and then end the season in Houston. You'd have to be incredibly optimistic to pick the Bears to get more than three wins out of the remaining six games. Minnesota will be looking for payback at the Metrodome and they already hung 41 on the self-proclaimed "best team in the league" in their first meeting. The Packers already blew the Bears out once and it would not surprise me to see them do it again. And while the Bears have sort of had New Orleans' number in recent years, I have a hard time buying in to them beating the Saints with the garbage pass defense they have.

That leaves the Rams, Jaguars and Texans as absolute must-win games, and I see the Bears flubbing at least one of those three. The Bears are going to be exposes for who they really are in the last six weeks - a bad football team. They'll finish 7-9, 8-8 at absolute best, and be sitting at home for the playoffs again.

In a telephone interview with the late legendary football coach, Paul "Bear" Bryant, I asked him what one piece of advice would he give a young football coach just starting out? His response, in that trademark deep gravely southern drawl, "Always put your best players on the field. No matter what differences or personalities may be involved, put that aside and always make sure you put your best players on the field."

This past Sunday, that simple - but very logical - bit of instruction from a football coach that won 323 college football games (at one point the division 1 record), would have come in handy for Minnesota Vikings Head Coach, Brad Childress. As the Vikings took possession of the football with a minute, 55 seconds remaining - an eternity in football - needing to move 64 yards for a touchdown to defeat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Adrian Peterson, the league's leading rusher and most feared offensive weapon, was left on the sideline to watch the finish like the rest of us.

As mystified as the Buccaneers had to have been, they had to be even more overjoyed to recover the game clinching fumble offered up by Peterson's backup, running back Chester Taylor, on their way to the 19-13 victory. If the Buccaneers could have asked the Vikings one favor as they prepared to try and do what the Packers could not do one week earlier, it would  have been to please, please, please leave Peterson - the best chance you have of beating us - on the bench!

Surely Childress had to remember one week earlier, faced with needing a touchdown to win from 69 yards away, he did what you are supposed to do in that situation. You give your meal ticket the ball and win or lose with him. Well, Childress won with Peterson, by feeding the ball to him - with a nice mix of runs and passes - six of the seven plays of the drive, culminating on the brilliant 29 yard touchdown dash to win it.

If only the Packers could have been so lucky, and had Childress have a last year's flashback moment in the game against them. It appeared this year that Childress finally accepted that he had the sport's top jewel at running back and his name was not Chester Taylor. Until Sunday it appeared that Childress had finally abandoned the ridiculous notion that his two running backs are equally interchangeable. You remember last year, when for the first half of the season the league's leading rusher was a "second stringer" behind Taylor. Eventually that stubbornness did give way to common sense, but the lack of usage of Peterson could have cost them a couple of games in the process, perhaps the difference between playing in the playoffs and watching them on the big screen.

Make no mistake, Taylor is indeed a solid running back, and a solid backup, but no NFL team fears Taylor the same way they do the electrifying Peterson. When the game is on the line, you must have your best weapons on the field, even if for decoy purposes, but you cannot have your best chance of winning available, but standing on the sidelines holding his helmut in his hands. For Peterson to rush for 72 yards on 13 carries (5.53 yards per carry) in the first half but have no touches from scrimmage in the fourth quarter of a tight ballgame is inexplicable.

This truly is the equilavent of Phil Jackson sitting Michael Jordan on the bench trailing by two with a minute to go, and letting the backups try to win it. For the younger reader, replace Michael Jordan with Kobe Bryant, you get the point. Can one imagine if Joe Torre had a healthy Derek Jeter sit in the dugout with him, while a pinch hitter took his cracks at it with the bases loaded in the bottom of the ninth? It would be insane, and obviously that coach and that manager would have enough common sense not to do it.

The Vikings obviously do not have the same amount of common sense occupying their sidelines. If Peterson had the touches that he should have had on the final drive, there of course is no guarantee of what the result would have been. However, if "Bear" Bryant would have been on that Viking sideline instead of Brad Childress, rest assured the Buccaneers would not have been let off of the hook so easily, they would have had to defend the Vikings' best shot.