For the second week in a row, the Bears play a team coming off a tough Monday night road game.
Q. The Vikings lost in Philadelphia. The Packers won in Carolina. Which would the Bears prefer?
A. You saw what happened in Green Bay last week. The Packers thought they were still in Charlotte, patting themselves on the back.
Q. Will the Vikings be more focused?
A. You should have heard them Monday night. It sounded like coach Mike Tice gave them the game plan for the Bears in the locker room.
Q. Aren’t the Vikings all beat up like the Bears?
A. Their running game is suffering from the loss of blockers Jim Kleinsasser and Mike Rosenthal and the speedy Michael Bennett. But Daunte Culpepper and Randy Moss are a lot healthier than the Bears’ Mike Brown and Charles Tillman.
Q. How did the Eagles hold the Vikings to field goals instead of touchdowns?
A. Culpepper’s fumble at the goal line helped. This is usually a very good game plan, as the Bears discovered when the Packers’ Ahman Green fumbled going in.
Q. How did they keep Culpepper in the pocket?
A. Actually, the Eagles wanted to flush Culpepper out of the pocket. This is unusual strategy against such a mobile quarterback, but Culpepper is more dangerous when given time in the pocket.
Q. How did they keep Moss from getting deep?
A. By chasing Culpepper.
Q. Did Lovie Smith promise to beat the Vikings too?
A. He knows better. Green Bay is enough. The Vikings aren’t a rivalry. They beat the Bears and George Halas in their very first game as an expansion team in 1961. Clobbered the Bears 37-13 and have pretty much owned them.
Q. Didn’t Rex Grossman beat them in his first start last year?
A. Sure did. Did it without throwing a touchdown pass.
Q. That was at Soldier Field. How will he fare in the notoriously noisy Metrodome?
A. He won in Lambeau in his first visit there. Little-known fact: Grossman majored in travel and tourism at Florida. It’s good to have a quarterback who knows a lot about road trips.
