Even on his 26th birthday, Hunter Hillenmeyer had no intention of fooling with fate or defying superstition. The first time he picked up the check for dinner the night before a game, the Bears won.
“So ever since then, every time I’m out with people before the game, I insist on paying,” he said.
The Bears linebacker admits it’s “weird” and jokes that after one particularly pricey evening, “I try not to eat with big groups.”
From the moment he came back from a trip home to Nashville on the Bears’ weekend off, Hillenmeyer’s week, like most Bears’, took on a methodical rhythm that carried him straight through Sunday’s 41-10 romp over the 49ers.
After attending Vanderbilt’s homecoming activities, seeing college and high school buddies, hearing endlessly the shocked reactions from those who watched the Bears beat Arizona and celebrating his brother’s fiance’s birthday along with his own, it was back to Chicago–though not without a few shaky moments.
“I took the last flight out Sunday, and they tell us not to do that,” Hillenmeyer said sheepishly. “If we miss our flight, they don’t take sympathy on us. If you’re not here by 8 Monday morning, you get fined. I was all right, there was no weather or anything like that.”
Toting the leftovers of the giant caramel cake his mother Sally always makes sure to have for her son’s birthday, which he then “smooshed” on the plane, Hillenmeyer did land on time, though not without worrying that “I might be heavy in weigh-ins.”
Obviously still carrying some guilt over the late flight, Hillenmeyer arrived bright and early for Monday morning’s meetings, finding out only after arriving at Halas Hall that he was an hour and a half early.
“So I cost myself an hour of sleep,” he said.
Following the routine
The Bears got an early jump on San Francisco tape and went through a light practice, the first Monday practice they’d had all season after being rewarded with a day off after each victory. Even with the extra day, however, Bears coaches were careful not to get too far ahead of themselves.
“The coaches really like that we get into a routine, and normally a routine is not being here, so if we got too far ahead today, we would probably be a little out of whack on Wednesday and Thursday,” Hillenmeyer explained.
“Everything is the same. You do first and second down on Wednesday, you do nickel, third-down situations on Thursday, short-yardage/goal-line Friday. It’s very methodical the way we go about getting ready each week. The coaches are getting ahead in their film study and their game-planning, but as far as the players, I think they like to keep us in that same mind-set, that same stage of preparation.”
A charity event Monday night and a day filled with errands followed Tuesday.
“That’s our one free day a week, so you kind of have to get all your stuff in–laundry, errands, bank,” Hillenmeyer said. “I’m not that big of a shopper. I don’t go to the mall a lot.”
Wednesday was a solid practice, with rested players and, therefore, good energy.
“San Francisco’s a team that does a lot of shifts and motions, stuff that takes a little more time to prepare for the adjustments we have to make, so we had a long walk-through and a good practice, and I think the coaches were pretty pleased with the way stuff went,” Hillenmeyer said.
Sunday’s game plan was installed, beginning as always with players getting new verbiage, new checks and new pressures. While the linebackers’ keys remain the same each game, “I don’t think people realize how much our game plan changes from week to week,” he said. “I think people just think we draw on the same stuff every week. That’s true to an extent, but we also have very specific differences that are key parts of the game plan every week.”
After the narrow escape at Arizona, the obvious conclusion was that other teams would benefit by following the Cardinals’ game plan. Hillenmeyer agreed to a point.
“I think teams will start to find ways to try to attack us like that,” he said. “But if teams are trying to dink and dunk us and gadget-play us just to get yards, that’s a good situation for us to be in.”
Adrenaline fades
The Bears’ defense, Hillenmeyer said Friday, was not buying into the 16 1/2-point spread for Sunday’s game.
“They’ve been running the football well, but I just read some stuff talking about how Alex Smith has already matched last year’s season total in touchdown passes,” he said.
“Their offense is doing good things. The reason they’ve been losing football games is because their defense is last in the league. So on our end of the football, we’re facing a good football team.”
But turnovers tend to obscure things. And after the Bears forced two in the first quarter en route to a 24-0 lead, Hillenmeyer and his mates had to fight off complacency on the sideline.
“I think the problem is when you get up that big that quick, it’s tough to stay in the right mind-set, it’s tough to keep that adrenaline going like you do in a close game,” he said.
“At the end of the first quarter, we knew we were going to win, and that’s hard from a mental standpoint to stay in it and stay focused, and that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Bears coach Lovie Smith had emphasized takeaways even more than usual.
“He wanted us every single time we were in the huddle to talk about getting the ball out, to talk about getting a strip,” Hillenmeyer said. “Maybe it worked. I mean, the ball was out a lot, even the couple times when we didn’t get it back, which isn’t something we want to happen, but we got a lot of turnovers.”
The defense was on the field for only 11 plays in the first quarter, and Hillenmeyer was blitzing more often than not the rest of the game. But he was not alone in his disappointment over a second half that blew a shutout.
“They won the second half of that football game, and granted, it’s because we were protecting the lead, but we still shouldn’t have given up 10 points like we did,” he said. “Whenever we’re out there, we want to strive for perfection. We didn’t have that in the second half.”
Patterned behavior
They do, however, have an undeniable home-field advantage, which Hillenmeyer attributes in part to routine.
“Everything ends up being the same,” he said. “We get our jersey taped and I go in there to get it tweaked by the equipment guys, and I’m always in there like 10 seconds after the guy who goes right before me,” he said.
“Everything is the same pattern every game. It’s methodical. I think that’s one of the reasons the team has such a home-field advantage because everything is the same. There are no X-factors, no long bus rides or jet lag or weird bed in the hotel we have to figure out. You know exactly what it’s going to be like, right up to kickoff.”
And after that?
“We’re the best team in the NFL if we play our best, and I don’t think there’s any team we can play our best football against that can still beat us,” Hillenmeyer said. “That’s what we started to realize as a team, that the only team that can beat the Bears is the Bears.
“It might not be 41-0 at halftime every time, but we should end up on top if we play the way we’re capable of.”
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misaacson@tribune.com
