Bears lose highlight-filled heartbreaker
It was easy for TV studios to edit film of Sunday's Minnesota Vikings-Chicago Bears game for highlights.
The big plays kind of stood out.
Eight touchdowns were scored, averaging 59.6 yards in distance.
The game-winning play? Same thing. A 55-yard field goal that traveled probably 55 1/2 yards that let Minnesota leave Soldier Field with a memorable 34-31 win.
A composite of the two individual standouts would take time - they were busy from start to finish. Minnesota rookie running back Adrian Peterson accounted for 361 total yards; Chicago's do-all Devin Hester zig-zagged for 272.
Peterson had touchdown runs of 67, 73 and 35 yards - then ran back the final kickoff 53 yards to set up Ryan Longwell's career-long kick with no time on the clock.
Hester returned his first punt 89 yards for a score; then hauled in an 81-yard pass from Brian Griese to tie the game 31-31 with 1:38 to play.
That tells most of the story, but hardly all.
Vikings quarterback Tarvaris Jackson fired a 60-yard scoring strike to Troy Williamson, only to have it negated by a 39-yarder from Griese to Bernard Berrian.
Griese later found Muhsin Muhammad from 33 yards out to launch a comeback that helped Chicago erase a 31-17 deficit with 4:10 to play - when thousands of fans began exiting - in a span of 2:32.
It seemed like linebacker Lance Briggs had made the biggest short play of the day on the final snap before the deciding field goal - he nailed Peterson for a 4-yard loss at the Chicago 33. Turns out he needed to make it a 5-yard loss.
Chicago also had to deal with having four turnovers to none for Minnesota.
Griese had two interceptions and lost a fumble on a fourth-and-1 sneak; fullback Jason McKie fumbled on the final play of the first half.
"Normally when you play football like that, you lose the football game," Chicago head coach Lovie Smith said.
While the 2-3 Vikings celebrated the highs of a rare road win against the Bears - they had dropped their last six as visitors in the series - the 2-4 Bears were left licking painful gaping wounds. Any gain garnered from a comeback win at Green Bay last weekend was snuffed out after watching Peterson run like nobody ever has against Chicago and for the most yards in a game by a Viking.
Miami's Ricky Williams had 216 yards rushing for Miami on Dec. 9, 2002 against the Bears. Peterson had 224 yards on 20 carries Sunday for an 11.2 average. He caught a pass from 9 yards, and averaged 32 yards on four kickoffs.
"I wasn't like, 'Oh, my God! It's Adrian Peterson,'" Bears corner Charles Tillman said. "We just didn't make the plays we needed to on defense."
Sherlock Holmes will not be needed to come to that conclusion.
"For someone to run that many carries for that many yards, or for a team to run for that many yards (311 total), it's obvious something happened that hasn't happened and we don't expect it to ever happen," Chicago defensive coordinator Bob Babich said.
Smith made the defensive deficiencies sound simple to analyze.
"You saw the game -- missed tackles, not able to get off the blocks, we have not played defense that way in a long time," he said.
Doing it again in this century, let alone this season, would be too soon.
"It's kind of a combination of a perfect storm," Bears safety Adam Archuleta said. "It's a combination of things; of him running well and us not doing what we're supposed to do - not being in gaps, missing tackles. It's notall him; not all us.
"We did not play well."
Counterpart Cedric Benson saw Peterson perform in similar style when he wasat Texas and Peterson played for Oklahoma.
"He had a great game," Benson said. "His guys up front were blocking wellfor him. He had some good looks, some great cutbacks and he finished the runs."
Said Peterson, the star of the hour, on whether he was surprised by his team's success: "Maybe a little bit, but I knew it was possible. We talked all week about capitalizing on opportunities, and that's what we did."
While Hester was happy to contribute, the scoreboard left him saying, "There's nothing to get excited about."
"We did all we could. We fought to the end, and didn't come out with the victory," he said. "It's very tough."
How tough?
"Probably," Tillman said when asked if it was the worst ever in his five-year pro career.