Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Brian Urlacher - Rate him what you want!

I know I’m not the only one that thought Brian Urlacher looked like he was playing ball alone this afternoon at Soldier Field in Chicago. Come on, the man tipped a ball to himself, a play so impressive I thought it was two different people in real time. All that and he had one official tackle(upgraded to 5 after studying the tape.

Wow.
What buttons do you have to hit to pull that off on Madden Football?

You get the idea that the people that placed him just below T.O. as the second most over-rated player in the NFL, his fellow players, are either off his schedule or play defense and want to watch the repercussions. Instead, he surely belongs on the other end of that spectrum, as he was so honored last season as Defensive MVP.


In Chicago, every once in a while we have someone special to watch; Back to Gale Sayers, Dick Butkus, Walter Payton, Michael Jordan, Denis Savard, Ernie Banks, Frank Thomas before he became the Big Disappointment, the ’85 Bears, and the Bulls of the 90’s. Brian Urlacher, since he came to the league, has been that guy to watch. He sells tickets all by himself, but he also makes his teammates better and pushes his team over the edge. It is no mistake that his counterpart on the line is a superstar as well, because the guy he replaced, Warrick Holdman? or was it Roosevelt Colvin, looked pretty good too. I respect Lance Briggs nearly as much as Urlacher, but don’t think he will be pulling the numbers he is now if he decides to take bigger money and go to another team next season.


Since Brian Urlacher first donned the uniform he has been someone to watch on the field. You could go to a Bears game and see something special in action just by following #54 around the field. There were times that he was the only thing to watch on our field, and clowns like Henry Burris, Jonathan Quinn, and Chad Hutchinson made sure he was out on the field constantly. Every one of the previous Bears legends, Butkus, Sayers, Payton, had times when they held the same position.


Urlacher has carried the team attendance-wise through hard times, and now can put them on his back and take over games if he needs to. 25 tackles against Arizona! Reports out of the locker room were that he single-handedly took that game back, and everyone on the team followed his lead. These days he has the fellow horses to pull a stunt like that comeback off, along with the worst team of this decade, mentally, to allow it.