Orton's injury a cruel blow
Bears' mission: Pick up their MVP
Mike Downey
In the wake of the news
10:53 PM CST, November 2, 2008
Kyle Orton was running for a sideline, not for his life, when he came under attack from a couple of fierce Lions who pounced on him like a slab of red meat.
Approximately 570 pounds in the persons of Cory Redding and Dewayne White landed on top of the Bears quarterback, and what happened next gave the home team's fans more of a fright Sunday than any horror they might have seen on Halloween.
K.O. got KO'd.
"To see him go down like that and carted off the field is a little scary," said Bears third-string quarterback Caleb Hanie, a rookie who will be the No. 2 quarterback six days from now when Soldier Field's visiting team transforms from winless Detroit into lossless Tennessee.
Scary? Very.
If somebody had to get hurt, did it have to be the team's MVP? Because if you think about it, that pretty much describes what Orton has been in 2008.
"You feel bad because you never want anybody to get hurt, especially a season-ending thing," Hanie said. "Which is kind of what it looks like when you get carted off the field."
Out went Orton, 40 seconds before halftime and with the Bears behind by 10 points.
In came Rex Grossman, the ghost of Halloween past, to hear "Booo!" a few times but to quarterback the Bears to a 27-23 we'll-take-it victory over the Lions.
"It's not like it's his first time," defensive end Alex Brown observed of Grossman. "He has been there before. If we can just cut out some of the boos when a bad play happens, we'll be fine."
Isn't it spooky, though, the way the Bears can lose a quality quarterback almost as fast as they can find one?
Orton could have been on his way to a Pro Bowl trip in Hawaii. He was having a heck of a season, even becoming a new darling of fantasy leagues.
He also was coming off a game in which the Bears racked up 48 points, which happens about as often as the Blackhawks score 10 goals.
Why was he MVP?
Maybe because:
•Return man Devin Hester, popular though he may be, has not scored on a punt or a kickoff this season.
•Rookie running back Matt Forte, promising as he may be, had not had a 100-yard rushing day since the Sept. 7 season opener before getting 126 Sunday.
•Middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, superstar that he may be, has yet to sack a quarterback in a season that is now eight games old.
•And that big, bad Bears defense that loves to think of itself as one of the NFL's best now has surrendered 20 or more points in six of the last seven games.
So what reason is there for the first-place Bears' record being 5-3?
"Kyle's the reason we're 5-3," Grossman summed things up.
Without K.O., who knows?
This team could be nearly half as good with No. 8 at quarterback rather than No. 18. On the other hand (in case you conveniently forgot), the Bears did go to a Super Bowl two seasons ago with No. 8 on the snaps.
"Orton's our quarterback, but right now I guess Rex is," Brown said. "We have two good quarterbacks."
Orton is to have an MRI on Monday, but he likely will miss up to a month.
No time is a good time, but it's too bad K.O.'s KO had to come with the undefeated Titans on their way to town. It isn't exactly going to be the Bears' easiest test of the season.
Then again, neither was the Lions game, which should have been a walk in the park.
It began all right. Orton had his guys—and they have been his—up 10-0 by the end of the first quarter with a decent drive that concluded with a 5-yard touchdown run by, of all people, Mr. Kyle Orton.
He hot-dogged it a bit, holding the ball high in the air before reaching the goal line.
(Understandable, it being the first rushing touchdown of his NFL career.)
But then the Lions put a 23-point second-quarter hit on the Bears and ended it with a bang heard 'round Soldier Field.
Orton was scrambling to get out of bounds when 295-pound tackle Redding tackled him in front of Detroit's bench. And when 275-pound linebacker White wound up trampling Orton in the process, the quarterback's ankle was trapped underneath a lot of Lions flesh.
He collapsed and had to leave the field in a meat wagon. Grossman and his totally untested backup, Hanie, had to come out for the second half warmed up to pitch relief.
"Rex came in and did a good job. He did what he's supposed to do," said Hanie, a rookie from Colorado State who suddenly looks a little more important to the Bears' playbook.
"It was a wake-up call to both of us that you're one play away, so you have to prepare. We'll see what Kyle's injury entails. It's looking decent, so hopefully he won't be out for the year. He has earned the right to be in there. But luckily we have Rex. He's also an NFL quarterback and he's a talented guy."
We will have to wait a few days here in Chicago to see which leader ends up in charge
