The last two weeks have done much to establish where the Bears stand in the National Football League this season. After a beginning in which they defeated four straight mediocre teams by slim margins, the Bears then lost to two very good teams by large margins. This left the Bears somewhere in the middle of the NFL pack, but where? Now that they’ve returned to their winning ways with three straight victories–the last two especially impressive, in that the Bears beat a couple of pretty good teams by encountering and overcoming their own weaknesses–they’ve shown that they’re a lot closer to the top than to the bottom. Don’t start planning a Super Bowl party yet, but put off all weekend trips in January: the Bears are going to make the playoffs again, probably as the Central Division champions.
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The Bears fell behind early on a 65-yard touchdown pass–a sort of gambit, as it turned out. The Saints didn’t go for the big play the rest of the day; they were content to bide their time with the lead. The Bears scrambled back with a pair of field goals, but the Saints’ Morten Andersen kicked a monstrous 60-yard field goal in the ideal conditions of the Superdome just before halftime, to give the Saints a 10-6 advantage.
Then, however, William “Refrigerator” Perry got involved. He was instrumental in both Chicago touchdowns: not in recovering a fumble on defense, not in returning to the Bears’ goal-line offense as a blocking back, but in making a pair of great defensive plays that gave the Bears the ball with good field position. Of course, Madden loved this; no other football announcer in the world loves the Fridge like Madden. When the Fridge falls on his head, Madden gets worked up about it, and when the Fridge plays well, Madden scribbles all over the screen and can barely be contained in the broadcast booth.
The Bears came out looking well prepared. Neal Anderson ran for a big gain on the first play from scrimmage, an end run, and then earned a key first down on a third-down play where the Bears got him isolated on a linebacker who couldn’t possibly stay with him. Yet the Bears stalled near the goal line and settled for a field goal.
