The Bears trailed 20-0 at halftime and 23-3 late in the third quarter before mounting a furious comeback capped by Devin Hester’s 83-yard punt return. Urlacher’s strip of Cardinals running back Edgerrin James, who was held up by defensive lineman Alfonso Boone with 5:11 left in the fourth quarter, led to a fumble recovery by Charles Tillman and a touchdown return of 40 yards, giving the Bears all the momentum they needed for the late rally.
Urlacher, fellow linebacker Lance Briggs, Bears coach Lovie Smith and James reflected on the critical forced fumble and score and how they changed the complexion of the game — and helped define Urlacher’s dominance over his 13-year career.
The play
Urlacher: I didn’t get blocked. I’m not sure if Hunter [Hillenmeyer] did, either. I think he was on the line of scrimmage. The tight end blocks down, and the wing [tight end] should have come down on Hunter. I’m assuming Hunter went down and kind of went underneath him, which left Charles [Tillman] open. And all I did, my job is to scrape and hammer the play. And I went down to hammer — there was no one to hammer. The first blocker that gets to me, hammer means to force everything back [inside] to Lance.
Briggs: It was one of those plays where everything fit exactly the way it was supposed to. The guys all flew in. I believe Hunter was in on the play, too. It was such a heads-up play. When you’re near that ball, Brian being that big opportunist, he ripped the ball out. That moment right there gave us another boost of confidence like, ‘We are going to do this.’
Urlacher: I kind of got behind Edgerrin, and with my right arm, which is my dominant arm, I was able to sneak in there and got my hand on the ball perfectly to pop it out. I’ve gotten the ball stripped from me like that, too. It’s hard to run with the ball when a guy has an angle like that on you.
Smith: That was a simple run by a Hall of Fame running back. [Urlacher’s] teammates held [James] up, and Brian just yanked the ball away. In that situation, [James] was carrying it tightly. Through the course of a play, typically, a running back can’t secure the ball all the way down to the ground. To fall to the ground, you have to brace yourself with one hand. So you’re not going to keep that ball covered the whole time through a play. The difference is … the reason most defenses don’t take the ball away is because they don’t attempt to take the ball away. The hard part is getting guys to buy into stripping the ball. Brian bought into it immediately.
James: We called the same play over and over, so they knew what we were doing. The play was stopped, and I thought the whistle should have been blown. [I] wasn’t going anywhere, and the play was over. Urlacher made a good play.
“The guy made almost every tackle in the fourth quarter. I think I had 16 tackles, which is good. And he had almost 10 more tackles than I had. He played like a man among boys.” Lance Briggs
The scoop and score
Urlacher: Peanut [Tillman] picking it up? That’s not awareness. That’s just being a football player. That’s what we were taught to do. Any one of our guys on defense, in that situation, would have done the exact same thing. But I’m glad it wasn’t a D-lineman who scooped the ball. I think a [Cardinals] lineman knocked the piss out of me, and I was trying to get up and get a block for Peanut after the strip. I was on the ground.
Smith: As a general rule, I would say every day in practice we worked on taking the ball away. A lot of people just work on takeaways in a drill. But it’s what we did throughout practice. Every incompletion [in practice], we treated it as a takeaway. So you scooped it and scored. It was just something that you were constantly doing. So that’s why when people say, ‘Can you believe what happened?’ I say, ‘Everybody on that Chicago Bear side was waiting for something like that to happen.’
Brian Urlacher knew he had the right angle to “sneak in there” and strip the ball from Edgerrin James. Forcing turnovers and trying to score were things the Bears worked on all season. AP Photo/Rick Scuteri
The aftermath
Urlacher: I remember vividly at halftime Olin [Kreutz] said, ‘We’re going to win this f—ing game. That’s all there is to it.’ We were down 20-0. And we come back and win after Hester’s return. Someone said there’s a TV copy of me, after Devin runs the punt back, saying, ‘Oh, we got this game now.’ That’s not what I said. I said, ‘We have to go back and stop them.’ And we did.
Smith: Brian had a lot of good games. When a guy has to come through the moment when the odds are against you — just think about that, you’re down 23-3 [late in the third quarter], and your offense doesn’t score. How many games would you win if you’re down 23-3 and the offense doesn’t score anymore? And then the one constant was Brian Urlacher, the guy who started it all.
Briggs: Brian’s best game? That was definitely one of them. It’s hard to beat 25 tackles and ripping the ball away. I saw him play in games where his stats weren’t as grand as 25 tackles, but he was an animal the whole game. But the tackles spoke for themselves. The guy made almost every tackle in the fourth quarter. I think I had 16 tackles, which is good. And he had almost 10 more tackles than I had. He played like a man among boys.
Urlacher: We watched [Green’s rant] in the locker room. I went out and did an interview with the Monday Night Football guys, and then came back in, and that’s when Denny was going crazy. We played them in the third preseason game, and they beat us pretty good. They moved the ball on us. So maybe they thought they had the advantage because they beat us in the preseason. Oh well.
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