Mark Bradley, Bears Super Fan

The Bears are 12 & 2 and Rex is our Quarterback!

The Chicago Bears - NFC North champions, earned a first-round bye, and homefield advantage! Playoffs go through Chicago!

Game Ball: Rex Grossman & Desmond Clark
Rex Grossman, passed for a career-best 339 yards, completed 29 of 44 with two touchdowns and no interceptions. As we watched to see if Rex Grossman could put together back-to-back quality performances and eliminate concerns over the quarterback position going into the playoffs, I think Grossman responded with an excellent effort.

Grossman became the first Bears quarterback to throw for at least 300 yards since Oct. 7, 2002 when Jim Miller had 353 yards in a loss to Green Bay.

Desmond Clark (7 catches, 125 yds, 2 TD) - Clark's 100-yard receiving game was the first by a Bears tight end since Emery Moorehead had 114 against the Bucs in 1985.

Clark did most of his damage in the first half, catching six passes for 107 yards including touchdowns of 24 and 12 yards. His six TDs this season equal a career high he set with the Denver Broncos in 2001.

The Hester / Bucs Fact:
The Bucs haven't returned a kickoff for a TD in their 31 seasons in the NFL. Hester has played 13 games, fielded 10 kickoffs and taken two back for touchdowns. The Bucs have played 495 games, fielded 1,877 kickoffs and never reached the end zone.

I liked seeing Hester, who now has the NFL-record six returns for TDs this season, lined up as a wide receiver late in the first quarter but Grossman's pass to him on the outside was too way low and incomplete.



Robbie Gould, who'd missed earlier in overtime from 37 yards, connected on a 25-yard field goal with 3:37 left to give the Bears the victory. Robbie needs to work on a routine to overcome the time out that tends to "Ice the Kicker."

Game Notes:
* The Bucs managed just two first downs and 64 total yards in the first half.

* The Bucs have lost 7 of 8.

Defense
The Bears looked every bit the dominant NFC team until relaxing with a 24-3 lead and allowing Tampa Bay to make a run in the second half and send this game to overtime.

I think part of that run was the Bears defense being tired and not having the normal rotation of Mike Brown, Nathan Vasher, Todd Johnson, Leon Joe, Tank Johnson, Tommie Harris. . .

Losing Tommie Harris and losing safety Mike Brown and now these incidents with Tank Johnson, they can't afford to keep losing players of that caliber.

This is not the same defense that won that Arizona game when Rex was simply dreadful. The important thing now is that we have the home-field advantage throughout the NFC playoffs, lets hope the offense can score more points and get us to the Super Bowl.

Thank goodness we have a great special teams and have that return weapon in Devin Hester and that Rex is coming around at the right time. Rex had two very good games back to back.