You hold in your hands a prized relic: a DVD from the coaches' film vault at Halas Hall. This, you were once told by a reliable source, deserves consideration as one of the best games Brian Urlacher ever played.
The source? Urlacher himself.
The DVD is more than a decade old and dusty now, a defensive masterpiece captured in October of a magical season that saw the Bears win 13 games and charge into the playoffs. But it's not what you're thinking.
This is not from University of Phoenix Stadium, not from Week 6 of 2006, not from that epic Bears comeback victory on "Monday Night Football" against the Cardinals. It's from a half-decade earlier.
The Georgia Dome. Week 4 of 2001.
Bears 31, Falcons 3.
Sure, Urlacher understands that so many others _ fans, analysts, even a majority of his former coaches and teammates _ rank the "Crown their ass!" game as his best individual performance. And it's easy to understand why.
That was the Bears' signature victory of their best season in the last three decades. It was an epic comeback from 20 points down, a rally fueled by defensive tenacity and veteran leadership and set on fire by elite players making game-changing plays.
When Bears coaches finished reviewing that film, Urlacher was credited with 25 tackles.
But Urlacher modestly downplays his excellence in that game. Sure, it's a top candidate to be acknowledged as his greatest individual performance over 13 seasons. But, as Urlacher has pointed out, his tackle total swelled to unprecedented levels that night because the Cardinals never really blocked him, because they became ultra-conservative with their commanding halftime lead and continued to send running back Edgerrin James into a black hole of defenders.
All Urlacher had to do was read and react, pounce and engulf.
Asked to rubber-stamp that as the undisputed crown-jewel game of his career, Urlacher has maintained that he often measured his performances by big plays. He recalls the 2011 season opener against the Falcons, a game in which he had an interception, a fumble-return touchdown and 10 tackles in a 30-12 Bears win.
He also circles back to this '01 game in Atlanta.
"A sack, a pick, a caused fumble, fumble return for a touchdown, another key tackle for (a) loss _ I always looked at those other stats, the big plays," Urlacher said. "Those are the ones I remember."
Fair enough. He's the Hall of Famer.
