The ’85 Bears’ defense was keen on the big play, with numbers that would otherwise only be rung up in a Madden video-game tournament — 64 sacks and 54 turnovers. The ’05 Bears are like the ’99 Bucs in that they are capable of the big play, but that their bread and butter is really just being stingy. The ’99 Bucs forced 32 turnovers (the team had a minus-6 turnover margin) and collected 47 sacks. The ’05 Bears are on pace for 34 turnovers (for an overall minus-1 turnover margin) and 54 sacks. Tampa Bay had two defensive touchdowns in 1999; the Bears have two so far in 2005.

The ’85 Bears were a mostly veteran group that already established itself with a league-record 72 sacks in 1984. The 1999 Buccaneers had a Pro Bowl veteran at middle linebacker — Hardy Nickerson — surrounded by emerging young talent such as Derrick Brooks, Warren Sapp and John Lynch. The 2005 Bears have a Pro Bowl veteran at middle linebacker — Brian Urlacher — surrounded by emerging young talent such as Lance Briggs, Alex Brown and Nathan Vasher. (As well as the aforementioned Super Bowl Shuffle rhyme-breaker, sack leader Adewale Ogunleye.)

Like that 1999 Buccaneers team, the 2005 Bears can ride this defensive wave into the playoffs, and even past the first round. If that Bucs team is any guide, the Bears’ offense eventually will doom the team. After all, anyone else who could have held 1999’s “Greatest Show on Turf” Rams to only 11 points probably would have won. If it came down to the Bears having to beat, say, the powerful Seattle offense — first in the league in yards, fourth in points — in the NFC championship, could the offense produce enough to keep up?

Then again, the answer could be yes. There’s another team in history much like the 2005 Bears when it comes to having a pedestrian offense paired with a monster defense, and like the ’85 Bears, it features Mike Ditka in a prominent role.

That team is the 1963 Bears, which won George Halas’ last NFL championship as a coach. Chicago was only 10th out of 14 teams in scoring offense, with a relatively dink-and-dunk (for that era) passing attack of Bill Wade to either Ditka or Johnny Morris, and a running attack that might have been the worst of any championship team, having been “led” by the mortal Joe Marconi and Ronnie Bull, and an over-the-hill Rick Casares.

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But the team finished 11-1-2 on the strength of a defense led by Hall of Famers Doug Atkins and the original great Chicago middle linebacker, Bill George. It allowed only 144 points, barely more than 10 points per game, best in the NFL. It held the powerful, Y.A. Tittle-quarterbacked New York Giants offense — its league-leading 448 points a whopping 79 points better than second-ranked Green Bay — to one touchdown in the Bears’ 14-10 championship game victory.

So forget 1985. Maybe, forget those 1999 Bucs. If this year’s Chicago Bears want inspiration from the past about how their plodding group can beat, say, the powerful, Peyton Manning-quarterbacked Indianapolis Colts to win the Super Bowl, they should start talking about 1963.

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