Inside the Bears

• Despite the Bears' early-season success, last Sunday night's 37-6 beating of the Seahawks was the game that the team needed to win in order to finally gain some of the respect that they deserve from the national media. Yeah, Seattle didn't have star RB Shaun Alexander, but would he have made a 31-point difference? I don't think so. Before the season started, I didn't see any "expert", not even one, say that the Bears would even make it to the NFC Championship Game. Any thoughts of the Super Bowl likely would've been laughed at. Oh wait, there was at least one person who said that the Bears were Super Bowl contenders... that would be yours truly, in this team preview that I wrote for Pro Fantasy Sports.
• If you look at all three phases of the game, the Bears are the best team in the NFL right now. ESPN's Sean Salisbury and Steve Young admitted as much after the Seahawks game. Some media types are still skeptical about this team because of their perceptions of how they thought the team would be (good defense, bad offense). But if you put your prejudices aside, the Bears are the best, most balanced team in the league at the moment. They have arguably their best, most balanced offense since 1995 thanks to the emergence of Rex Grossman and Bernard Berrian, they have a dominant defense, and their special teams have been special. Sure, the Colts have Peyton Manning, but their defense doesn't hold a candle to the Bears' defense. The Ravens' defense is playing at a very high level, but Steve McNair and Jamal Lewis have both been very average players on an average offense. Baltimore almost lost to Cleveland and probably should've lost to San Diego last Sunday.
• The Seahawks' game plan to spread the Bears' defense out with four WRs obviously didn't work too well. Four WRs means fewer blockers, and with the Bears' front four, that's a recipe for disaster. Seattle backup RB Maurice Morris is a pretty good player, but he's no Alexander, and the Bears knew to focus more on Seattle's passing game than their running game. The Bears kept weak-side LB Lance Briggs on the field with the Nickel package because they don't have a Dime package, and Briggs wound up having a very good game.
• Did I think that Grossman was going to be this good? No, but I did think that he could average about 200 passing yards and 1-2 TDs per game. Through four games, he's averaging 250+ yards and 2 TDs per game. Can he sustain these lofty numbers? I don't think so, not because Grossman will regress, but because the running game started to get going against Seattle and should be a bigger part of the offense as the season goes on. I still think that Grossman should be able to average at least 215 yards and 1-2 TDs per game for the rest of the season, if he stays healthy.
• Speaking of the running game, it was good to see Thomas Jones finally make some nice runs against Seattle, which came into the game ranked #2 in the league in rushing defense. Cedric Benson also got his share of carries, and I think that coach Lovie Smith would ideally like Jones to carry 20-25 times per game while Benson carries about 10-12 times per game.
• What else can you say about Bernard Berrian? He has proved his critics wrong, consistently running by coverages and catching bomb after bomb. Even I was skeptical about whether he could do this on a consistent basis, but he's done it so far, and I certainly hope that he can keep this up. Muhsin Muhammad has been rock-solid at the other WR spot, catching virtually everything that's been thrown to him. You can see the chemistry that he and Grossman have.