As Rex Grossman jogged onto the field to direct the Bears’ first drive of the second half Sunday night, the frigid Soldier Field crowd erupted.
The cheer had been rivaled to that point only by the announcement that the temperature had dropped from a windchill reading of 3 below zero at kickoff to 6 below in the first quarter.
Watching offensive highlights from the first half of the Bears’ 16-3 victory over Atlanta proved just as numbing, which is why coach Lovie Smith made the change that disappointed Kyle Orton and surprised even Grossman.
“Lovie said right before the half, `Get ready. You’re going in the second half,'” Grossman said. “I had a chance to gather my thoughts at halftime. I got coached up a little by [offensive coordinator] Ron Turner as far as what he liked and what he was going to call. It was a blast.”
Taking his first regular-season snaps of 2005, Grossman showed no effects from the broken left ankle he suffered during an Aug. 12 exhibition game in St. Louis. He directed scoring drives on two of his first three possessions and finished 9-for-16 for 93 yards and an interception.
Numbers fail to capture what his entry did to the crowd of 54,771 and a dormant passing game that had previously treated third down as a precursor to a punt.
With Minnesota having lost, the Bears can clinch their first division title since 2001 with a victory on Christmas in Green Gay. Smith wouldn’t officially declare Grossman the starter for that game.
Turner smiled a coy smile when asked if Grossman would start.
“I haven’t talked to Lovie about it, but what do you think?” he said.
Smith pulled Orton despite the Bears leading 6-3 at halftime. The Bears had managed just four first downs and 12 yards passing.
“I just felt we needed a spark,” Smith said. “The defense was playing well. Rex was ready to go. He had that look about him. It was a gut feeling, and we went with it.”
The only offensive highlights early were extracurricular ones. Frustrated by Orton’s 2-for-10 performance and especially by being missed on a route where he felt open in the end zone, Muhsin Muhammad unleashed a season’s worth of frustration on the rookie quarterback.
Orton said Muhammad later apologized. The players were separated by center Olin Kreutz on the sideline.
Grossman then offered a different kind of separation. His first pass, a 22-yard dart, fittingly went to Muhammad.
“That definitely gave me a lot of confidence,” Grossman said. “Whatever jitters I did have, that settled me down right there.”
Grossman then fired a 10-yard pass to Justin Gage to convert the Bears’ first third down of the game. They had gone 3-for-30 over the previous 2 1/2 games.
Grossman tried to force a pass into Muhammad near the end zone that Keion Carpenter intercepted. But Carpenter fumbled the ball, and Gage recovered at the 1.
“I wish I had that interception back,” Grossman said. “But it turned out to be a 7 1/2-yard gain. I was lucky. I think I deserve a little luck.”
Thomas Jones, gritty with 91 yards on 27 carries, scored on the next play for a 13-3 Bears lead.
Meanwhile, the league’s top-ranked defense was busy making life miserable for Michael Vick, who led an offense that gained 231 yards.
The tone was set on Atlanta’s opening possession when Brian Urlacher hit Vick so hard on a scramble that the elusive quarterback fired the ball at the linebacker in frustration.
As expected, that unit played with three new starters as Mike Brown and Chris Harris succumbed to their calf and knee injuries, respectively, and Leon Joe replaced Hunter Hillenmeyer (broken thumb) at strong-side linebacker.
Mike Green, one of the new starting safeties with undrafted rookie Brandon McGowan, had a huge game with an interception and a hit on Michael Jenkins that led to a Nathan Vasher interception.
Green’s pick led to Grossman’s second straight scoring drive that included third-down conversions of 10 yards to Muhammad and 19 yards to Gage. Robbie Gould’s 39-yard field goal gave the Bears a 16-3 lead with 53 seconds left in the third quarter.
Such a lead seemed inconceivable with the way the Bears’ offense began the game.
The Bears failed to gain a first down during a first quarter in which they went three-and-out four straight times and managed 2 net yards of offense. Orton missed on all five of his passes.
“I didn’t play well,” Orton said.
Atlanta scored first on Todd Peterson’s 30-yard field goal with 10:16 remaining before halftime.
The Bears responded on the ensuing possession, posting a first down when Orton hit Bernard Berrian for 12 yards on the drive’s first play. Then a Berrian end-around that got sprung by a Gage block and ended 37 yards downfield surprised Atlanta.
Gould’s 35-yard field goal tied the game.
The Bears took a 6-3 lead on Gould’s 29-yard field goal with 3:20 left before halftime. Berrian’s 24-yard punt return set the Bears up at the Atlanta 44, and Muhammad drew a 25-yard pass-interference call on Hall on the Bears’ first play from scrimmage.
The Bears finished their home schedule with a 7-1 record, matching the home mark posted by the 2001 playoff team.
“It was a thrill,” Grossman said. “Just to finally be back and have the crowd support like that, it’s something you can’t really explain unless you experience it yourself. . . . It’s a memory I’ll take with me the rest of my life.”
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kcjohnson@tribune.com
