Cramer takes over top spot

The mighty Chicago Bears finally fell last week leaving the Indianapolis Colts as the only remaining undefeated team in the National Football League once again, but it was the way Da Bears lost that has sent prognosticators to take a more conservative approach to picking Rex Grossman and company this week against the N.Y. Giants.

After being compared to the Super Bowl champions from 1985 that lost only one game with Buddy Ryan’s 6-4 defense, the Bears added another tidbit to their collection as they both lost to Miami. Whether or not the home loss to the Dolphins will be their last, the Bears are still a team to be reckoned with.

The only thing now is that Grossman looks a little more like he has in the past than the top notch style that he used to usher in the first half of the season. At 7-1, the Bears are still looking strong, but their miraculous win over the Cardinals and the loss to the fish in the Windy City has caused their mystique to fade.

Don’t get me wrong, the monsters of the midway have been searching for their identity ever since winning the Lombardi trophy some 21 years ago, but their defense has been towing the line for the past couple of seasons and this time around it looked as if the offense was doing its fair share of scoring for a change.

After a number of draft day backfield busts, the Bears finally have something to roar about with quality receivers and a decent running back, but everything depends on Grossman’s ability to handle the pressure.

In a pre-game interview last week, Miami defensive end Jason Taylor said that Grossman is a different quarterback once he gets hit a few times. That’s exactly what happened to the former Gator in Chicago and the Bears went down for the first time this season.

The week before, Chicago put a beating on the San Francisco 49ers, but that was their first game back from the bye that followed the offensive disaster that was their Arizona experience. Matt Leinhart was in command though most of the game before Brian Urlacher took control of the game and led a defensive onslaught in the fourth quarter that snatched the victory back from the red birds.

While Chicago’s loss to the Dolphins was unexpected, Chicago wasn’t the only city whose fans watched slack-jawed as the Atlanta Falcons lost to the pathetic Detroit Lions. Football in Detroit used to be fun to watch in the days of Barry Sanders, but the Ford Field fans had reason to celebrate on Sunday as the Lions scored a 30-14 win over the dirty birds.

The loss could not have been more frustrating for Michael Vick, who has recently received accolades for his pocket presence and throwing ability rather than his evasive powers and ludicrous speed.

Quarterbacking woes continue much further north than Atlanta as the Pittsburgh Steelers are wondering what happened to the Big Ben that chimed with regular season win in just about every start. A motorcycle crash, the removal of his spleen, and two concussions within the last year help to explain his difficulties but that’s not all.

The Steelers haven’t produced much of a running game with the loss of Jerome Bettis, and losing Antwaan Randle El didn’t help either, but good teams recover from free agency losses. Look at the New England Patriots. Tom Brady lost all of his receivers except Troy Brown, and he seems to be doing fine.