Monday Night Football: Miami at Chicago

Marino, before his arrest for possession of a deadly weapon

The Dolphins leave sunny Miami on a trip north to bring themselves one step closer to a rare Tecmo AFC East title. Standing in their way are the Chicago Bears, with everything to play for outside of a Steve McMichael hair vs. hair match against Pete Stoyanovich. The season has come down to games like this, in which one win or loss could turn the tide of 11 previous weeks of hard work and pixellated explosions. Let's head to Chicago now to see if Miami can keep rolling, or if the vaunted Bears' 'D' can clam up the Dolphins offense while Neal Anderson gives Don Shula a new set of recurring nightmares.


Quarter One
Marc Logan is the first to handle the game ball after Miami wins the toss, and gets his team in good starting position at their own 44-yard line. Chicago brings the pain on first down, forcing a Tony Paige fumble in which the Fridge gobbles up and carts all the way back to the Miami 8-yard line.

A normal aftermath of the famous Chicago blitz

Jim Harbaugh, the second coming of Jim McMahon, hands the ball off to Brad Muster, the first coming of Brad Muster, on first down. Muster gets within inches of the goal line, setting up a Neal Anderson run to vulture his first touchdown on the day for Chicago.

Chicago leads 7-0

Logan gets another shot at it, carrying it out to the Miami 37-yard line before coughing up the second Dolphins' fumble of the day. Richmond Webb is there this time, the first time Webb has been present for anything important on a football field, and stretches the return out to the Miami 45-yard hash-mark. The drive starts with Marino sneaking up the middle for 4 yards, followed by two Sammie Smith runs to get the first down. Marino finally goes to the air after he gets word that his conceal-and-carry permit went through and finds Mark Duper, who pulls in the Marino laser in double coverage at the Chicago 17. The drive seems to stall there, however, with two batted away passes followed by a wild overthrow of Paige in the back of the end zone. Stoyanovich is on to make things dramatic from 33-yards out with a field goal off the right upright.

Chicago leads 7-3

DOG PILE!!

Johnny Bailey takes back the first Chicago return of the day to the 48-yard line after Stoyanovich's kick goes for fewer yards than the pee-wee division of Punt, Pass 'n Kick. Harbaugh's pass to Wendell Davis is incomplete, keeping Harbaugh near his average of 0% in completions, however that is destroyed when he hits Anderson on the run who ends up going for 50 yards to the Miami 2-yard line. Harbaugh brings his total back down to the median with a batted away pass to Davis in the end zone, before going with the obvious Anderson hand-off for Neal's second touchdown of the day.

Chicago leads 14-3

The last play of the wild first quarter is a long Marc Logan return to the Chicago 45-yard line.

Quarter Two
Paige takes the ball on first down and runs for 15 yards to the Chicago 25-yard line. After the conversion, Marino drops back to pass, throwing it away despite nobody being covered, although a group of headless tourists get a nice souvenir. Smith gets the ball on second down and travels for 4 yards, but the final 6 aren't picked up on third down when the Fridge records his first sack of the day. Stoyanovich is back out for the second time, and apparently my Tecmo game is lazy as it puts up the same cinema screen of the ball bouncing in off of the right upright.

Chicago leads 14-6

Muster surprisingly gets the ball on first down, making this only the second time this has happened since my 4-year old cousin was mashing buttons on his controller. Of course, he fumbles it, but Harbaugh saves him and follows that up with a nervous pass into coverage that is nearly picked off. Anderson finally gets involved on 3rd-and-8, and loses yardage on a play that's not picked by the defense for only the second time since my 10-year old cousin thought he picked the Hail Mary pass.

Never underestimate the Ferrell factor

Tony Martin takes the punt and gets it to the Miami 15-yard line with 1:52 left in the half. Paige takes a slant pass 25-yards to the Dolphins' 40 yard line, where Miami takes its first time out to find out what the hell happened to Ferrell Edmuds. After he's accounted for, Marino tosses the ball his way and Ferrell dives into coverage to pull it in at the 37-yard line for just his 4th reception this year. After a second time out, the Dolphins go with one of the lesser-popular 2-minute drill plays, the Paige handoff up the middle for 3 yards. With 49 seconds left, Miami takes its final time out and goes back to the air with a play-action pass to Clayton. The ball is knocked away, however, and now the 'Phins face 3rd-and-7 with 33 seconds left. Marino's receivers are covered, and so he wisely goes 12 yards to get within Stoyanovich upright-bangin' range, in which Pete banks it for the third straight rimshot to end the half.

Chicago leads 14-9

Halftime - Bears 14, Dolphins 9

Weave, Neal! WEAVE!

Quarter Three
Stoyanovich finally lets loose with a full-power kick, which Bailey takes out from the back of the end zone to the Chicago 8-yard line. Muster takes the ball on two straight runs, meaning the Bears have officially entered taunting territory. Anderson gets the ball twice after that, shaming Muster with his two straight first-down conversion runs, followed by a third run in which he finally breaks loose for 33 yards before barely getting tripped up in a footrace with a Miami defender. And it's yet another piece of evidence to show how programmers didn't anticipate the popular 'weaving back and forth' method, one that would have inevitably led to a Chicago score. After an incomplete pass in the end zone, Anderson runs for 9.9 yards. On 3rd-and-inches, Anderson follows some great blocks for another 23 yards to the Miami 4-yard line. Muster is denied on a 3 yard run, while Anderson picks at the remains for his second vultured touchdown and third on the day.

Chicago leads 21-9

Logan isn't so fortunate on his fourth return, only getting to the Miami 9-yard line to set up the Dolphins' longest drive of the day. It doesn't start well, when a pass to a wide open Mark Clayton along the sideline is batted away by a leaping Richard Dent, who could have fit a whole deep dish pizza beneath his feet. Smith gets the ball twice after that, but both runs are short of the first down. Reggie Roby is on for his first punt of the day, and he sails it 73 yards, nailing a kissing couple on the Navy Pier.

Neal Anderson runs twice before the quarter expires, with one of those runs nearly ending in the Bears O-line needing to be excavated from the frozen Soldier Field tundra.

Quarter Four
The fourth quarter begins with Neal Anderson converting the first down, something that didn't look so positive at the end of the last quarter. Harbaugh uses the fresh set of downs to go deep to James Thornton, who drags it down at the Miami 20-yard line for a 42-yard connection. One play later, Da Bears find themselves again at the Miami 2-yard line after a Harbaugh-Ron Morris connection. The Miami defense finally comes alive when Jeff Cross drops Harbaugh for a loss of 9. Anderson can't pull in a Harbaugh pass in double coverage, denying himself his fourth touchdown and angering throngs of pad-and-pencil fantasy footballers. Perhaps the only people angrier are Kevin Butler owners, as he can't convert the chip shot field goal.

Damn you, trigonometry!

Playing down by 11 with just over 3 minutes to go, Marino hustles his team on the field and immediately hustles them back off with a poorly placed interception to Lemuel Stinson at the Chicago 45-yard line.

That other receiver must have seen a squirrel

With another chance, Anderson zig-zags for his most beautiful run of the day for 27-yards. Two plays later, Harbaugh finds a leaping Morris for 26-yards to the Miami 2-yard line, where they seemed to have dug a trench. This time, John Offerdahl gobbles Harbaugh up for a loss of 11. Muster chugs along for 6 yards, coming up short yet again in scoring and in keeping his parents from wondering how the Andersons got so lucky. On 3rd-and-goal from the 7-yard line, Anderson takes the pitch but moves back up to the middle to run into his own line, once again preventing himself from scoring for the fourth time today. Luckily Butler gets his kick in off the left upright, otherwise there might have been a few burning crosses on his lawn overnight.

Chicago leads 24-9

Down by 15, Miami is facing the impossibility of needing three Tecmo scores as opposed to two normal scores. Logan gets the ball to the Miami 36-yard line with 51 seconds left. And in just a few more seconds, Marino throws for only the second time this quarter, and once again it's not to one of his own receivers.

Muster gets the ball on first down, and caps off his forgettable night by fumbling it over to Cliff Odom, who thunderfoots it just long enough to let the clock expire and mercifully keep Marino off the field.

Final: Bears 24, Dolphins 9

The Bears came out tonight and did what they had to do to keep moving forward in this race, while also making fools of the 'Phins. Miami didn't look like the dominant team they've been throughout the middle part of the season, staying in this game for about as long as the break between Harry Galbreath's meals. Anderson was the star of this one, scoring 3 touchdowns (although walking away from a possible 2 more) and it appears he's getting hot again just in time, leading the league in yards and touchdowns by a large margin. The Dolphins still hold control over the AFC East, but after Marino's shaky performance here, we imagine it's only a matter of time before he's wearing a 'I <3 Bills' shirt and paying for expensive meals with Bruce Smith.