Quarter One
Ken Willis lets his meter charge up to full power before booting the opening kickoff to Darren Willis, who wisely takes it from deep inside the end zone out to the Chicago 10-yard line. The Jim Harbaugh power hour begins shortly thereafter, with a dink-a-dunk pass to G. Thomas Waddle for a short gain. Neal Anderson, seeing some extra touches with Chicago mourning the loss of a one Brad Muster, powers up the middle for seven productive yards. Harbaugh then connects on his next two passes, an eleven-yarder to Lewis and a nice chunk of 28 yards to Waddle. After the Tampa Bay defense stalls them with a blitz and a remarkable stop of Anderson at the line, Harbaugh drops back and finds Neal to seal the deal with a short pass that Anderson heroically rushes in for a score.
Chicago leads 7-0
Chicago leads 7-3
The infirmary continues to pile up with bodies of Bears as Darren Lewis is wiped out on his return. However, the Chicago faithful suddenly feel a sense of calm as their newest savior, Bob Christian, appears amidst a choir of angels singing his name. He is persecuted immediately when a Tampa Bay blitz crucifies him for a loss of 4 yards. Harbaugh atones for his newest disciple's sins with a pass to Wendell Davis that gains a solid 28 yards, followed by another appearance of Neal Anderson picking up 6 yards to rounds this quarter out with his Bears on the move.
Quarter Two
The second quarter is immediately welcomed by Chicago with a redux of the Harbaugh-to-Anderson shovel pass in which Anderson shows shades of his former ogre self with a 46-yard charge to the end zone.
Chicago leads 14-3
Another short Butler kick has the Buccaneers starting near midfield, from which they immediately cut the field in half with a diving Cobb catch-and-run to the Bears' 22-yard line. Cobb sees the ball on the next down, running around the left side for 12 yards to help his Bucs plunder their way into the red zone. Aside from a minor setback in which McDowell coughs up the ball out of bounds, Tampa Bay is able to close the margin with a wide open Cobb sealing off his one-man drive with a catch in stride on his way to roads paved in gold.Chicago leads 14-10
John Adams High School's native son, Anthony Morgan, is the next member on the Chicago carousel, as he makes his debut returning a kick to the 15-yard line. Bob "The Answer" Christian is once again entrusted with the ball, and this time is able to pilgrim his way to the 32-yard line. Not finished, he preaches to the masses of pirating heathens with a holy 31 yard gain to the Tampa Bay 26-yard line. The Bucs' defense catches up with his scheme, knocking him back for a loss of 6, but the long-term plan is executed as Harbaugh, who is sneakily tossing a perfect game, connects with Mr. Waddle for a 33-yard touchdown.
Chicago leads 21-10
With the half ticking away and the Buccaneers left with questions to the Bears' new 'answer', Anderson is forced to return the first decent kickoff from Butler today. He stamps his flag at the 34-yard line, from which Tampa Bay decides to heroically turn the other cheek with a McDowell run play that ends up in his second fumble of the day.
Halftime - Bears 21, Buccaneers 10
Quarter Three
Given a second chance, Anderson returns the kick to midfield, sandwiching a Reginald Cobb run with a 45-yard toss-up to Lawrence Dawsey for a quick Tampa Bay touchdown.
Chicago leads 21-17Morgan stamps his greatest return of the day at the Chicago 40, where Harbaugh gets down to work completing more passes to Wonderful Waddle of Ohio, whose leaping grab at the Tampa Bay 23-yard line keeps his captain perfect on the day. Christian nets 11 yards, a loaf of bread and some fish over the next two plays, building up to a play action that sees Harbaugh connecting with Wendell Davis for his fourth passing touchdown as of press time.
Chicago leads 28-17
Exhaustion grips the Buccaneers squad, who can't quite seem to keep up with the fire-and-poppy-seed-bun-filled bellies of their counterparts. It can be seen on the face of Tony McDowell, who only gains 1 yard on two separate runs into his offensive line; it can also be read on Ron Hall who, even in catching a pass for a first down, seems to run backwards in the face of all eleven Bears chasing him down. After a promising run from McDowell to gain another 15 yards, Testaverde's arm looks wearier than ever with a cupcake floater pass into the waiting arms of Lamuel Stinson.
Calvin Tiggle keeps Harbaugh's perfect game in check with a 2-yard sack on first down, but the collected captain of the Bears only needs to go back to "The Answer" with a 10-yard pitch and two hand-offs to end the quarter with a total gain of 33 more yards.
Quarter FourStarting the final and freshest quarter at a bit more belabored pace, the Bears find themselves in a 3rd-and-4 situation from their opponent's 34-yard line. From the shotgun formation, Harbaugh scans the field for his weapons, finally tossing it up to the divine hands of one Bob Christian, who drops it near the end zone amidst the cacophonous noises of Harbaugh's relevance collapsing. Kevin Butler marches on to the field with his Tic-Tac toes and careens the kick wide right.
And as they say in the Tampa Bay, the tide appears to be turning. Usually referring to when the garbage washes back ashore in Tampa, Vinny and his rag-tag group of creamsicle warriors hope to push the garbage away with a pristine drive that includes a Mark Carrier leaping grab at the Chicago 32-yard line, followed by a pass to McDowell that nets another 12. On the next play, however, the Bucs are awash in a tidal wave of Tampax and syringes when Vinny lobs up another pick to Stinson, this time at the goal line.
Despite his defense all but nailing this one in, Harbaugh's newfound grumpy demeanor begins to affect him on the field with two errant passes towards Waddle and a fumbled handoff to Christian that puts the Tampa Bay offense back on the field with some time to play after a Chris Gardocki punt.
And Donnell Woolford makes three, if we were to count Vinny Testaverde interceptions instead of the building blocks of a nuclear family, which the Chicago Bears clearly are not.
Harbaugh, apparently rediscovering the true meaning of Bob Christian, pitches it to his running back on first down for a 20-yard gain around the left side. On the next play, from the shotgun formation, Harbaugh delivers the final punctuation mark to his stellar day which, like his running back, is no longer a question mark. His 24-yard bullet is caught by Keith Jennings, the fourth receiver to catch a Harbaugh touchdown to make it five for the Menace from Michigan.Chicago leads 35-17
Tampa Bay finishes out the game about as meekly as the rest of it, with four plays netting 14 yards, followed up by a leaping grab from Carrier at the Chicago 13-yard line that puts them within 13 yards of nobody really giving a damn anymore.
Final: Bears 35, Buccaneers 17
The blowout Bears reined in a lead early in this one and never relented against the pesky squad from the Sunshine state. The win rewards Chicago with a second-place tie alongside the Bucs in the NFC Central, but perhaps even more rewarding is the knowledge of the depth that the Bears' roster now has, with Bob Christian answering the calls of injured members of Chicago's rushing corps. Though one-game anomalies litter the Tecmo landscape, Christian proved his worth on the field with his 120 rushing yards and shutting out the former Monster out of the Midway in Neal Anderson with his first appearance. After some strong showings the last few weeks, Tampa Bay has to take this loss to heart, knowing that they had all the tools to keep up with a usually punchless Chicago squad but never finding a way to clog up the unglued arm of the nearly-perfect Harbaugh or halt Christian from walking on water all over their defense. They kept it close to start, but Vinny's second-half crumble ultimately led to their demise, the rumors of which will never be exaggerated.
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