So I've taken a liking to "House," but every single episode is promoted on Fox as, "House faces his toughest case yet." Forgive me, the Bears are starting from their 7, from where Jones gets three and then Grossman hits Muhammad on the left side for 16 to the 26. Make that 18 to the 28, I don't understand how referees spot the ball sometimes. Grossman hit as he throws goes deep to Muhammad, but a little too deep and it falls incomplete. Jones gets five or six. Jones makes a move, bursts through a hole and gets a 17-yard gain. Great pull and lead block by Ruben Brown on that. Jones gets about three into Pats' territory. Jones for five more to the Pats' 42 as the clock rolls under 5 minutes. Jones around right end and Asante Samuel gets Jones down just shy of the first down. Lovie asks for a measurement to know whether to go for it or not, it looks like it's just under a yard, and they'll go for it. Aikman just called Grossman "Tom Brady." Rex "Tom Brady" Grossman sneaks and I think he got it but Buck suggests that it'll take a "generous" spot. Generous or no, by half the football it is a first down. Bears' ball just inside the 40 and Colvin jumps offside to make it 1st and 5 just inside the 35. Jones gets four. Jones cuts back and gets the first, and that's about it. Fox runs its own little version of our 20 questions with Rex Grossman, and his worst job ever was shoveling manure on a farm. Buck says, "His worst job… you can read for yourself." This is why I don't like Buck. He's so incredibly sanctimonious he can't even say "manure" on the air. Grossman has time on a play fake, goes deep for Clark but threw just a little behind him and Samuel picks it off and returns it past the 30.
Dillon gets four. Urlacher blitzes, Pats pick him up, Dillon gets three. Brady's pass over the middle is tipped by the receiver, tipped again by Manning, picked off by Tillman and returned just to the Bears' side of midfield.
Tank Johnson forced Brady's high pass, one of the linebackers (I didn't see who) read the open receiver over the middle quickly to give him the alligator arms, causing the tip, Manning was quick to get his hand on it and Tillman was around the ball again for the pick. Great team effort. Benson gets a pair. Hillenmeyer was the linebacker who read the receiver. Grossman fires a little ahead of a wide-open Clark. He threw it too hard. Buck suggests throws like that are why folks are calling for Griese. With :29 left, Grossman goes deep for Berrian and the Bears get a pass interference call down to the 6, possibly a make-up call for that earlier no-call on the sandwich of Berrian. Benson gets a couple and that's the quarter.
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FOURTH QUARTER
For those of you interested in the full info on Seau, . Someone named Pinkert e-mailed in wondering what happened to using Berrian and Bradley at the same time. I don't know. Grossman hit as he throws and it goes off of Muhammad's hands in the end zone. That whole deal is erased by a holding call on Hobbs, Bears have 1st and goal from the 2 and Benson gets the score. Gould hits the PAT.
Bears 10, Patriots 10, 14:53 left in the game
Big Cat, I wondered at the beginning of the game what excuse folks would give if the Bears came away with a win here. Turns out that the Bears still won't have a "legit" win after this game because of the penalties called on their first touchdown. I can hear it now. Maroney returns it to the 27, from where Brady hits Watson in the left flat for five yards. Run off tackle right gets not much, 3rd and 3. Tommie Harris runs over his blocker, but Brady slides right and hits Ben Watson deep over Danieal Manning to the Bears' 26. Then the Pats run some sort of double reverse that loses eight yards. On the first reverse, they had the Bears over-pursuing and had some space with only a couple of tacklers, then they handed it off back into the teeth of the pursuit. A run gets those yards back, then Brady scrambles, jukes Urlacher and gets the first down to the 14. Fullback Heath Evans gets five, then Maroney gets a couple. Brady was jawing at Urlacher after that move. Quarterback sneak and it looks like they have the first down. They sorta quick-snapped it and got a quick push to make the space, 1st and goal from the 3. Maroney gets one, then a play-action pass finds a wide-open Watson on the left side of the end zone. PAT is good.
Patriots 17, Bears 10, 8:22 left in the game
Okay, game on. Rashied Davis fields it in the end zone, and might as well not have wasted his energy on the return as he gets dropped at the 20. Grossman's quick-out is batted down. Rob, I don't know that you can call this a "contain" defense when it has two picks, two fumble recoveries and three forced fumbles. Jones gets nine, then three, then the clock will stop with 7:26 left for Tedy Bruschi. Jones bounces off a couple of backfield tackle attempts, turns the corner and isn't brought down until midfield. Make that the Bears' 49, from where Jones gets four with Bruschi back in the game. Grossman steps up as the blitz goes behind him and it hits off Muhammad's hands. Grossman goes deep to Berrian, who is pushed to the ground by Hobbs and the refs flag him, Bears ball on the Pats' 18. Aikman criticizes the call and Buck defends it. Jones gets three. Bears take a timeout. Aikman said that the defender had as much right to go for the ball as did Berrian, but what Hobbs did was find out that the ball was on the inside, then just prevented Berrian from adjusting to it. That's playing the man, not the ball, which is pass interference. Swing pass to Jones gets nothing, if that much, as Colvin read the play perfectly. Patriots blitz, Grossman hits Davis shy of the sticks, Gould will attempt a mid-range field goal. He hits it and I'll have the yardage for you in a second.
Patriots 17, Bears 13, 3:31 left in the game
I picked Patriots, 17-14, and my colleague Amanda Kaschube picked Patriots, 17-13. Not to say we wouldn't be tickled if the Bears won, but still… Kick returned to the 27. Brady has a wide-open Caldwell, who gets pushed out of bounds just shy of midfield in front of a leaping Tedy Bruschi. Run gets nothing and the Bears will stop the clock at 3:10 with their second timeout. Mark Anderson, who apparently lost a half sack during the week, lights up Brady as he throws, forcing an incomplete pass, 3rd and 9 from midfield. Brady hits Caldwell on the same route that Mark Bradley took for a touchdown against the Jets, and Tillman over-pursued it the same way the Jets' cornerback did, and Caldwell doesn't get chased down until the 30. Evans picks up a pair and the Bears call their final timeout with 2:18 left. Meanwhile, the Giants are melting down against Tennessee. That satisfies my New York schadenfreude. Dillon gets a couple and a fight breaks out, with no flags. Ha. The only warning the refs issue is the 2-minute warning. I imagine the NFL will levy some fines after reviewing that film. They just ran a Ford ad for some truck that has a gigantic payload, and they demonstrate this by showing some dudes load a bunch of construction waste onto the truck. Good, I was looking for something to haul my bricks and cement. Dillon slips out of an Urlacher tackle, but can't hold onto the ball as Danieal Manning pokes the ball out of his hands and Alex Brown recovers at the 21 with 1:52 left.
Grossman goes deep for Davis, but Asante Samuel picks off his third pass of the game. Grossman has been throwing just a little off his receivers' routes all game. Knees and that's it.
Final: Patriots 17, Bears 13
Final thoughts: Buck said there will doubtless be articles written about Brian Griese and Aikman responded that Grossman is what is holding this team back. He was just off, and against the Patriots defense that's enough to cost the team the game. When the defense forces five turnovers, it shouldn't be in a loss. Ever. All that said, this wasn't exactly the disaster that Arizona or Miami was. The division stands like this: If the Packers lose either tomorrow night or next Sunday and the Bears beat the Vikings next week, the Bears are back-to-back NFC North champions.
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