Tongue firmly in cheek, Donovan McNabb pretended not to recall the hubbub created over the summer after Tommie Harris told a Philadelphia TV reporter, “If [McNabb] comes to Chicago, we’ll definitely win the Super Bowl.”
“I didn’t hear that,” McNabb said Wednesday during a teleconference. “Did he say that at my event?”
Indeed Harris did at McNabb’s football camp. According to Harris’ version, McNabb laughed behind the camera. But the normally fun-loving Harris saw no humor in recalling that day in June, probably because it doesn’t seem so funny anymore.
For starters, the 2-4 Bears no longer resemble a team, on either side of the football, worthy of Super Bowl contention, whether the quarterback was McNabb, Rex Grossman or Peyton Manning.
Furthermore, bringing up such bold Super Bowl talk only reminds everybody how dearly the Bears have paid for spending their off-season in a state somewhere between complacency and cockiness.
“I think the hunger probably just was satisfied at the Super Bowl,” Harris acknowledged.
Wednesday’s revelation by Harris, backed up by fellow team leader Adewale Ogunleye, should have been even harder for Bears fans to swallow than hearing McNabb say he expected to finish his career in Philadelphia.
McNabb’s prediction wasn’t as surprising as the Bears’ admission was disappointing. Not to mention indicting to everybody who cashes a paycheck signed by team President Ted Phillips.
“It’s one thing to go to a Super Bowl and win and it’s another to go there and lose and I think it’s more difficult,” Harris continued. “When you win it, you get to stand up like, ‘We’re keeping this trophy, this is ours.’ But it really takes a lot out of you if you get that far [and lose].”
Asked about the Bears’ Super Bowl hangover for which everybody in the organization insisted they had a cure, Ogunleye answered with more damning proof to the contrary.
“What we did was we kind of jumped to Phoenix before we got there [for the 2008 Super Bowl in Glendale, Ariz.],” Ogunleye said. “It’s kind of good we got some humble pie and we’re going to see what guys have the character on this team.”
Good idea. But while Ogunleye was looking for character guys, teammate Bernard Berrian was busy finalizing details with his new agent, Drew Rosenhaus. If a player switching agents in the midst of a mediocre season doesn’t indicate a team allowing individual concerns to cloud its focus on team, nothing does. Before Berrian starts plotting strategy for a potential franchise tag in the off-season, maybe he could start producing like a receiver worth $8 million.
Preparing miles away for the Eagles’ own must-win game Sunday, McNabb could relate to how a team can unravel after losing a Super Bowl.
Without criticizing the Bears specifically for lacking urgency as an organization since their trip to Miami, McNabb related his own experiences of enduring a 6-10 record in 2005 after going 13-3 and losing Super Bowl XXXIX to the Patriots.
“The tough part of it is knowing the players and the talent you have and that things just seem to go wrong,” McNabb said. “Guys are really pushing extra hard and maybe doing too much to try to propel it in the right direction. That’s a tough situation, going from being so high to being so low.”
For the Bears to prevent dropping lower in spirit and in the standings, they will have to give Philadelphia fans another reason to rip McNabb.
Stopping the run rates a top priority after last week’s debacle because Brian Westbrook poses every bit the threat Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson did, according to Bears players. Charles Tillman called Westbrook the NFL’s most underrated running back.
But with run defense such a focus that the Bears likely will improve the way they fill their gaps, expect the Eagles to go as McNabb goes.
The Eagles have won 32 of the 34 games in which McNabb has posted a passer rating of 100 or higher. Last month against Detroit, McNabb became only the fifth quarterback in NFL history to earn a perfect passer rating of 158.3 with more than 25 pass attempts. Overall, he has completed 59 percent of his passes for 1,221 yards, six TDs and two interceptions.
Off-season knee surgery might have limited McNabb’s range outside the pocket but not his effectiveness.
“He may not quite be the way he was, but I wouldn’t underestimate his mobility,” said Bears defensive tackle Darwin Walker, a former Eagle.
Of the Eagles’ 22 sacks allowed, 12 came against the Giants, but fill-in left tackle Winston Justice practically opened an I-PASS lane to the quarterback. He’s back on the bench. The Bears respect McNabb too much to think they can rattle him.
McNabb scrambled just a little for an answer when asked what he would tell people in Chicago already clamoring for the Bears to engineer an off-season trade to make him his hometown team’s 2008 starting quarterback.
“I really can’t say much on that,” he said. “I can only focus on being here right now, in the Philadelphia Eagles organization and continue working.”
A minute later, McNabb conceded he believed he would finish his career in Philadelphia because “I just love being here,” he said.
The Bears would love to still be close enough to a Super Bowl to say McNabb or any other quarterback is the missing piece, as Harris suggested last summer. Alas, the puzzle at Halas Hall suddenly looks too muddled to say that.
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The funk of losing
Since the 1993 season, when Bills lost a fourth straight Super Bowl, no team that lost has made it back to a conference title game, let alone another Super Bowl. How they’ve fared since, with non-playoff teams highlighted:
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SB LOSER NEXT SEASON
XXVIII Bills 7-9, no playoffs
XXIX Chargers 9-7, 1st round
XXX Steelers 10-6, 2nd round
XXXI Patriots 10-6, 2nd round
XXXII Packers 11-5, 1st round
XXXIII Falcons 5-11, no playoffs
XXXIV Titans 13-3, 2nd round
XXXV Giants 7-9, no playoffs
XXXVI Rams 7-9, no playoffs
XXXVII Raiders 4-2, no playoffs
XXXVIII Panthers 7-9, no playoffs
XXXIX Eagles 6-10, no playoffs
XL Seahawks 9-7, 2nd round
XLI Bears 2-4 so far
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dhaugh@tribune.com
