Good As Gould!

By Benjy Lipsman in News on Jan 15, 2007 3:30PM

Chicagoist didn't expect the spanking the Bears administered to to the Seahawks the last time they met. In fact, the game wasn't decided until overtime, where the Bears won 27-24 on a Robbie Gould 49-yard field goal.

The game was pretty much the nail biter we expected. Our 24-21 prediction was pretty damn close, and we were correct that Grossman's play (76.9 QB rating ) wouldn't neatly fall into either the good or bad category that the media had been obsessing about for the past couple of weeks. While he did make some reckless throws, the only actual interception wasn't even his fault -- Moose Muhammed should have caught that ball. He threw for close to 300 yards and a TD, although he could have done a better job of avoiding Seattle's pass rush.

Overall, it this was not a pretty win. The Trib's John Mullins must have been grading on a curve, because anybody who watched the game wouldn't give the grades he gave. Hell, the lowest grade he gave was a B to the offensive line! Maybe these grades would have been approprate had the Bears again won 37-6. But in a 3-point OT victory, clearly there was some mediocre play by at least some of the players. Grossman's 76.9 QB rating is really more of a B-/C+ day in our book. And doesn't he ding the special teams at all for Hester's 3 fumbles and Wesley's penalty that brought back an apparent Hester punt return TD?

ESPN.com's Gene Wojciechowski's assessment seems a little closer to reality.

Not that we're not happy with an ugly win. All that matters is that the Bears won the game, and they're moving on to the NFC title game next Sunday. Bring on the Saints!

The New Orleans Saints will be marching into town to determine who gets to play either New England or Indianapolis in Super Bowl XLI. We're confident the Bears will win, although we'll wait until later in the week to provide a more complete analysis and predictions.

Photo via AFP/Getty Images/Gregory Shamus