Column: Grossman leads Bears to exhilarating win

By Majesh Abraham

The collective hearts of Bear nation only started beating once that football had sailed through the uprights.

Thanks to Robbie Gould’s game winning kick, the Bears took one step closer to the Super Bowl and exercised a few demons on the way.

The last two times the Bears were in the playoffs, they were in the exact same position they were in on Sunday; playing at home after a bye week – and both times they came away empty handed.

But thanks to a solid game by much maligned quarterback Rex Grossman, timely stops by the defense and the golden foot of their kicker, the third time proved to be the charm for the Bears.

Grossman came into the game with a mountain of pressure on his shoulders after posting an atrocious 0.0 QB rating in his last game. All week, the pre-game talk centered around what version of Grossman we’d see after his Jekyll and Hyde season.

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It wasn’t a great performance, but Grossman made enough plays to lead the Bears to victory, and more importantly, he didn’t throw the game away with turnovers. The reason head coach Lovie Smith stuck with Grossman is because he has the talent to take the team to the Super Bowl.

That talent was on display on that perfect deep pass to Bernard Berrian for a 68-yard touchdown pass. Grossman, surprisingly, also showed some great composure leading the two-minute offense for a TD before the end of the first half. But the completion of the game came in overtime, on a 30-yard third down completion to Rashied Davis which set up Gould for his heroics. All Bears fans wanted from Grossman was to not give the game away, but he showed he could win the game on the biggest stage of his career so far.

On the other side of the football, the Bears defense, which looked so dominant earlier this year, had struggled in the second half of the season. The defense has not fully recovered from the loss of Pro Bowlers Mike Brown and Tommie Harris, and their run defense has been especially vulnerable.

The defense couldn’t stop the run again on Sunday, as Shaun Alexander gashed them for 108 yards and 2 TDs. But they came up big in key situations, stuffing Alexander on two consecutive short yardage situations late in the fourth quarter, and stopping the Seahawks’ drive in overtime.

Ricky Manning’s interception of Matt Hasselbeck in the fourth quarter also swung the momentum right back in the Bears’ favor – after Grossman had just turned the ball over.

The defense will have to step it up a notch next week as they face their toughest match-up of the year against the New Orleans Saints.

The Saints are stacked on offense, as Pro Bowl QB Drew Brees has an array of good skill position players at his disposal.

They have a power running back in Deuce McCalister and a guy who can take it to the house in RB Reggie Bush. But Bush wasn’t even the best rookie on his team, as rookie receiver Marques Colston had over a 1,000 yards receiving and eight TD’s.

NFL Coach of the Year Sean Payton uses a variety of formations and plays to maximize his offensive talent, and the pressure will be on Smith and defensive coordinator Ron Rivera to devise a game-plan to slow this offense down.

But for right now, the Bears can enjoy removing the monkey off their backs and winning their first post-season game since 1995, all thanks to Gould, an undrafted free-agent from Penn State that the Bears picked up two years ago.

Gould’s All-Pro season continued with two clutch field goals in this game. A 41-yarder that tied the game at 24, and, of course, the game-winner in overtime.

Only 16 months ago Gould was a construction worker, and now he is the toast of Chicago. The only thing that could top this would be a Super Bowl-winning kick.

If that happens, Gould would become by far the most precious commodity in Chicago.

Majesh Abraham is a junior in LAS. He can be reached at [email protected].