First things first: Tommie Harris might be my new favorite player on the team. He's been incredible so far this season. He already has 3 sacks on the season, which is as many as he had all of last season, and then just in case nobody had noticed how good he is, he blew right past Steve "God" Hutchinson and practically beed Brad Johnson and whoever was in running for the Vikes to the handoff and knocked in on the ground. It wasn't one of those fumbles where the defensive guy gets a lucky punch on the ball that the running back wasn't protecting well enough; he just got back there so fast that nobody even realized he was there. BJohnson said he'd have to go back to the tape and watch the play again in order to see what happened, because he felt like he'd got the handoff. So, yeah, Tommie Harris rules.

The game was a little hard to watch, because it just didn't seem like the Bears were all there for most of the second half, and the first half ended with a series of weak calls by the refs that pretty much gave the Vikes an extra drive and an extra three points. But still, after watching the Bears offense run up the points that last two weeks, it was somewhat frustrating to wait until the fourth quarter for a touchdown. Maybe I've just been spoiled that quickly. Grossman's interception was a pretty bad one. He said in the postgame that he was trying to throw it away and didn't notice the corner there, and if that's true, it's not quite as bad as it looked, because it looked like he was trying to force a play to Jones who was lying on the ground. But maybe my perception of the play was moved in that direction by the commentators who said that Grossman "needs to learn to accept it when a play isn't there." Yeah, he probably does, but one of the things that's been so fun about watching Grossman so far is that he's living up to the "gunslinger" hype. In yesterday's game he averaged 12 yards a completion, and on the season he's averaging nearly nine yards per attempt, both of which are numbers the likes of which I've never seen for a Bears quarterback. He looked a little shaky there during most of the second quarter, when he threw his first interception, but it was really nice to see him come back in the second half look a bit more like he's looked all season. The Vikes pass rush looked better than either GB or Detroit looked, and he appeared to be a bit ratteld, throwing off of his back foot a number of times resulting in hesitant wobbly passes. His second interception seemed to be a bit more of an anomoly. They'd managed to score two field goals so far in the quarter, bringing score from 6-3 to 6-9, and their offense had been moving well against the defense, with some pretty decent running, finally, and the defense had finally started stopping the Vikes before they got to field goal range. It looked like, even if the Vikes remained stout in the red zone, that the Bears had the game pretty much in hand, as they had the ball again and could likely drive down the field and burn up some clock time and at least get another field goal making it 6-12, and probably they could have done the same thing again. There was no way the defense was giving up a touchdown to the Vikes offense. There didn't seem to be that threat all game. Grossman's interception made it so the offense had to score a touchdown, and boy it felt good when they did. It would have been nice to see the Bears a little more dominant, but they really pretty much had the game in hand during the entire second half, if it weren't for those pesky seven points Grossman gave to the Vikes.

Pat Forde's assessment of the Bears' D after the game reads as such: "The Bears don't simply run to the football. They take the bullet train. Big holes and expectant big plays evaporate. Even on a Sunday when Chicago missed an unusual number of tackles, it still never suffered a serious breakdown." It's a little weird that that praise comes after the worst game the D's played this season, but it also is something of an indicator of how good the D is. Even on something of an off day, they look better than any other D in the league. I haven't watched Baltimore yet this year, and I haven't seen very much of Jacksonville, but, well, I don't care. If Pat Forde (whoever he is) says it, it's good enough for me!

Meanwhile, John "Mr. Mackey" Clayton writes, "The Bears rushed for only 51 yards against the Bears" [sic]. John Clayton has to be the best football analyst working today.

Other random football highlight: When I got to work yesterday it was close to the end of the third quarter, and the score was 42-3. The Giants managed to get a touchdown (Manning-Toomer), and Toomer actually celebrated with a big cocky walk and his arms spread and that slow head nod thing, which kind of seemed hilarious, since no one else cared. Then, with 9:46 left in the fourth quarter, Hasselback threw an interception, making it 42-17. Buck's comment on the touchdown: "And just like that, the Giants are back in this thing!" Maybe they were just desperate for it to be a game or something, since they're Troy "God" Aikman and Joe "God Plus" Buck, but if Buck wasn't embarassed for saying that, he at least should be.