Bear Digest

Avoiding letdowns after miracle wins is hardly a new Bears experience

It's been a season of avoiding catastrophes for the Bears with miracle comebacks so what's one more to get past when preparing to face the Rams in the playoffs?
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears center Drew Dalman says the team is finding ways to get past Saturday's emotional high and get its footing.
Bears center Drew Dalman says the team is finding ways to get past Saturday's emotional high and get its footing. | Chicago Bears On SI Photo: Chicago Bears video

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Chicago Bears

The Bears should land back down on good old terra firma sometime right about now.

They've been floating around lighter than air after the huge comeback win Saturday over the Packers in the playoffs, and it's better to be well grounded when trying to play against the best offense in the NFL, the Los Angeles Rams.

“This is my eighth year now," linebacker Tremaine Edmunds said. "Games like that you're going to remember your whole career and then even when you retire. These are the type games that go down in the history books as far as everything that went into it."

They can't dwell upon it unless it weighs them down.

"Where we at right now though, you have to move forward," Edmunds said. "We've enjoyed it for a couple days, but we’ve got a game to get ready for this week. A great opponent coming into town.

"It's important that we have our enjoyment of the game, but at the same  time, we’ve got a bigger mission at hand and we’ve got to get ready to flip that page.”

It helps to have someone who has been through that sort of thing. Considering they've made as many unlikely escapes as they have this year, coming back down from the high of such a thrill should probably be old hat for the entire team. They won after a blocked kick beat the Raiders, after a fumble let them escape Washington with a win, after Colston Loveland's 58-yard bolt beat the Bengals, after Caleb Williams' two TD runs overcame the Giants, after special teams rescued them again against Minnesota. The list goes on and on.

Still, it helps to have someone on the team capable of dispensing some advice on bouncing back after death-defying acts like the Bears performed against the Packers. The Bears have that guy in third quarterback Case Keenum, one of the authors of the Minneapolis Miracle in the 2017 season.

"I think Case Keenum had some good thoughts after one of our  offensive meetings this morning: 'All that stuff's really awesome, and it feels very emotional and significant, but none of that affects the next week,' " center Drew Dalman said. "And so, that happens. You celebrate it, you enjoy all the positivity and then very quickly, not to diminish it or anything like that, but you're like, ‘all right, now the priority is the Rams,' and you can't have a lull coming off a game like that or anything. So I think we're definitely transitioning to that.”

The advice from Keenum was pretty simple.

“I think it's just mentally, not lingering," Dalman said. "I can't say I'm like an expert on that or anything (laughter). But, just moving on and kind of prioritizing the next simple task.

"Today, it was all get our bodies moving, have a good lift, have a good flush, all those kind of things."

Otherwise it will be the Rams doing the flushing and the Bears going down the  drain Sunday.

"So, I think just focusing on the next step in the process rather than thinking about those really big broad things like an emotional win or another big game or things like that," Dalman said.

Keenum should know the dangers of such a thing. In January of 2018, after the Minneapolis Miracle and 29-24 Vikings win over New Orleans on Stefon Diggs' 61-yard catch from Keenum, the emotions were high. Then the Vikings went to Philadelphia and looked like they had been flattened by a steamroller, 36-7 by Nick Foles and the Eagles.

The big difference here being the Bears will get to stay at home, where the emotion letdown should be easier to avoid.

Besides, a 36-7 deficit would probably just be only another challenge to overcome for this Bears team that seems to know no deficit too large for elimination.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.