Early in the game against Green Bay two Sundays ago–during the Packers’ first drive, in fact–middle linebacker Dante Jones stepped in front of a Brett Favre pass at the Bears’ 14-yard line and returned the interception to the 20. In the grip of a Green Bay tackler, he handed the ball off to cornerback Jeremy Lincoln trailing the play. Lincoln skirted the sideline for 80 yards to give the Bears their first score and a 7-0 lead.
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The 30-17 victory over the Pack put the Bears in a three-way tie for first in the Central Division of the National Football Conference, at 7-5. With the Bears’ revival came renewed fan interest. And Bears fans have always preferred seeing the team win the way it did against the Packers, with the defense scoring three touchdowns, than in a 41-38 scorefest decided by a last-minute touchdown. We were out and about running errands, with the tape machine running at home, as the Bears and Packers played. Walking down the street, we heard shouts coming from upstairs apartments. Stomping, clapping, and screaming rumbled from quiet-looking corner taverns. We hurried back to the car as soon as possible and turned on the radio to listen to Dick Butkus and Gary Fencik growl their way through the game with the help of the sports world’s most put-upon play-by-play man, Wayne Larrivee. It was like old times.
And the Bears got beat by the lowly Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Keith Jennings, gang-tackled, gave up a tough fumble in Tampa Bay territory; Bucs quarterback Craig Erickson, who kept the Bears’ defensive linemen off balance all day long with a staggered count–somnolent and drawn-out one down, crisp and direct the next–hit open passes on the sidelines and up the middle to get the Bucs into field goal range: 3-0. Then the Bears were pinned at their one-yard line by a Tampa punt that bounced on the five and dropped into the hands of the lead coverage man. The Bears got nothing in three downs–a bad run and two Jim Harbaugh incompletions–and punted the ball out to their own 41, from where Courtney Hawkins, making great cuts (and shaking a Maurice Douglass tackle), ran it back to the seven. Even the Bears would have been able to score from there, and when the Bucs did they led 10-0.
The Bears marched to the Tampa Bay 36 midway through the final frame and went for a first down on fourth and one. They pitched to Tim Worley, and he looked to have an easy first down as he cut wide toward the line of scrimmage. But Tampa Bay safety Marty Carter, pursuing the play from the back side, caught Worley with a shoestring tackle as Worley paused to decide how to get the five or seven yards he seemed about to run. Ball over to Tampa Bay. When the Bears got the ball back they couldn’t respond to the pressure of the ticking clock–Willis looked like the inexperienced quarterback he is–and failed to get a first down at midfield in the final two minutes. The Bucs didn’t get a first down either, but Ron Cox roughed the kicker on the punt. For a team that had thrived by not committing penalties this was the most ironic way to finish the game.
