Make sure you bundle up before boarding your flight. 5 below tonight and a high of 8 tomorrow. I am looking forward to the bean dip. BTW, I won't tell anyone that you picked Indianapolis in the pool.
"You've heard us talk about finish," Lovie Smith said Friday. "We are a good football team, and we know how to finish the job. Teams like this deserve to have a championship."
Band of brothers
The Bears sensed a special chemistry way back in training camp, and this tight-knit team aims to stay true to its motto: `Finish'
By David Haugh
Tribune staff reporter
February 4, 2007
MIAMI -- On the night the wonder of this season was born Oct. 16, boys were being boys inside the Bears' locker room.
Some players danced with each other after they had come back from a 20-point deficit to beat the Arizona Cardinals at the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. Others hugged. Everybody celebrated.
There was whooping. There was hollering. There was unrestrained emotion unleashed one spontaneous outburst at a time.
Until Olin Kreutz noticed the Bears had visitors.
"Media's present!" Kreutz yelled at the top of his lungs as reporters began filing into the Bears' inner sanctum. "That's enough!"
With that warning, the players grew quieter. Joy didn't leave the room, but restraint returned.
A point had been made.
We see what the Bears want us to see about them and hear what they want us to hear. They can reveal bits and pieces of themselves for 3,000 reporters to digest in the days leading up to the Super Bowl. But what happens in public is for show and--perhaps unlike the 1985 Bears, who thrived on their celebrity--the secret to the '06 version always has been confined to what goes on with no cameras or tape recorders in sight.
"If you don't have a good locker room, you won't have a good football team," general manager Jerry Angelo said. "No team gets into the playoffs without good chemistry."
More than a dominant offensive line or an opportunistic defense, that represents the biggest strength of these Bears.
It's a category difficult to quantify but impossible to ignore. In that way they resemble the 2005 World Series champion White Sox, the last Chicago team to raise the city's hopes this high. From the highest-paid player to the last member of the practice squad, the Bears have built relationships that played no small role in their ability to forge an NFC champion.
Those bonds helped them get past the Thomas Jones-Cedric Benson rivalry of training camp and the loss of Mike Brown and Tommie Harris. They only became stronger banding together over criticism of Rex Grossman and the crisis of Tank Johnson.
The strength of those connections comes in handy during games, when adversity inevitably strikes and the Bears have to stage a rally on offense or make a stand on defense. Each huddle becomes a circle of trust. It can be much harder to fail when players care about letting down a teammate as much as themselves.
The Bears talk a lot about finishing, as the "Finish" signs plastered all over their hotel here indicate. One of the main reasons the Bears have been able to finish so successfully this year?
Nobody wants this season to end.
"We've just got a lot of good guys, guys not worried about being superstars, guys who look out for each other, and that's a huge factor through the course of a long season," Kreutz said.
"I've never been on a team where everybody talks to everybody. We'll be going through the walk-through, and the offensive line is talking to the defense, and defensive linemen will be talking to wide receivers. There's not one group of guys who hang together, because everybody wants the same thing."
No star turns
After backup safety Tyler Everett was released from the practice squad Oct. 11, his phone rang. It was Brian Urlacher, the team's superstar, calling to keep Everett's spirits up. Eight days later the Bears re-signed Everett, who still was marveling at Urlacher's friendship and approachability all week at the Super Bowl.
Everett was not alone among obscure Bears whom Urlacher has made feel as welcome as a high-priced free-agent acquisition.
"People don't know a lot about that side of him, but new players aren't here but for a couple of days and Brian knows who they are and something about them," safety Cameron Worrell said.
"When an All-Pro linebacker and the best player on the team knows your name on your second day with the team, it lets you know you're a part of something big."
The Bears bragged a lot in preseason about returning 22 starters. But the most significant part about that had nothing to do with talent and everything to do with personality. Their experience getting along with each other meant as much as their experience on the field.
"We actually can be in the same room together and not kill each other," said defensive end Alex Brown, who mentioned regular Saturday breakfasts with teammates as one example.
"Most of the guys in here, we really do get along. I know that I can go to offensive linemen or a cornerback or someone like that if I needed some advice on something. It's a very, very close-knit group.
"Then when we go on the field, it's a lot easier to understand what the next person is going to do."
It can be less predictable in the locker room, where that trust is forged over the countless hours the Bears must spend together. They find common ground good-naturedly making fun of each other, as when Kreutz referred to rookie Tyler Reed as the ugliest player in the league, or playing "stupid little games," according to Bernard Berrian.
One of more mindless ones involves throwing a ball across the locker room to see how far it rolls after hitting the edge of a bench.
"We love to play them," Berrian said, "and I think stuff like that does help keep everyone together."
Besides Urlacher, Lance Briggs and Charles Tillman were mentioned regularly as guys who help keep the mood light on defense. Jones and Kreutz came up most often in an informal poll ranking the biggest instigators on offense.
"Thomas Jones is probably the quietest guy around the media when he puts on that serious face, but in the locker room, he jokes around, plays and has a good time," Desmond Clark said.
"And just close those doors and there's never a dull moment with Olin. You guys will probably never catch those moments with him."
No, because Kreutz works as hard to protect his tough-guy image publicly as he does to protect Rex Grossman. But guard Roberto Garza knows beneath Kreutz's rugged exterior lies a soft spot only teammates and coaches get to see.
When Garza joined the Bears before the 2005 season, he wondered how he would fit in on a line anchored by a guy so intimidating. It only took a few dinners together as an offensive line for Garza to conclude he had entered an environment that struck him as unique in the NFL.
"It was special to step in, be accepted and have that unity right away," Garza said. "From the first moment I got here, I knew people were special. Olin, Moose [Muhammad]. Brian Urlacher is a superstar, and he's just one of the guys and the center of the locker room. Everybody just fits in."
Winning formula
Winning 26 of the last 35 games helps. But is it the cause or the effect of good team chemistry?
Angelo and his front-office staff of player personnel director Bobby DePaul and director of college scouting Greg Gabriel weigh intangibles such as getting along with teammates as heavily as 40-yard dash time and vertical leap.
That doesn't necessarily mean the Bears seek choirboy types with unblemished pasts (see Tank Johnson or Ricky Manning Jr.). It only means they look for players likely to mesh in a group atmosphere.
"That is very difficult to do in this new environment because you are bringing in new people every year, and the roster is rotating 75 to 80 percent every four years," Angelo said. "Guys must have passion for football. That's the key. They have to love football.
"Football is a tough game, and they've got to be tough. Their work ethic is important. They've got to like to work, and if they like to work, they are working together. Then you'll see your locker room galvanize."
It was during training camp when Kreutz first told veteran teammates such as Ruben Brown that the feeling in the locker room this season felt different. Looser. Closer. Special.
Super Bowl-worthy.
"They don't necessarily have to love each other, but they have to respect each other," Angelo said. "And they will respect each other if they have the same common goal.
"That's the great thing about our sport. It's not based on intelligence. It's not based on color. It's based on a common bond to be a great team."
The 2006 Bears are within 60 minutes of being bonded forever by greatness. Can they finish the job they started April 10 on the first day of mini-camp?
"You've heard us talk about finish," Lovie Smith said Friday. "We are a good football team, and we know how to finish the job. Teams like this deserve to have a championship."
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dhaugh@tribune.com
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