What’s the old yarn about how great teams find ways to win, even when they shouldn’t? The New England Patriots get all kinds of credit for winning games even when they play poorly. Of course, Tom Brady never has days like Rex Grossman had Monday night in the desert. Hell, Scott Zolak never had days like Rex.

On a night when the offense went old-school (think Henry Burris-era) and the defense played the first quarter like the goal was to miss as many tackles as possible, the Bears became the first team in NFL history to erase a 20 point deficit without the benefit of an offensive touchdown. The thing that has fans so optimistic about the Bears is that they don’t need the defense to score to win games.

But isn’t it nice to know that they still can?

To say the Bears offense was poor on Monday is an understatement of “You know, those fake sketches on Studio 60 aren’t really all that hilarious” proportions. Both sucked to epic proportions on the same night.

Since Arizona is known for three things: 1) a landscape that resembles a well-used cat box, 2) more scorpions than a German metal band tribute concert and 3) point shaving scandals, you had to wonder if Rex wasn’t being paid a little extra to keep the spread and the over/under down.

All of the progress he’s shown this season regressed in a matter of seconds. His performance made you pine for the 7-12, 98 yards Kyle Orton passing days. It’s one thing to have a rough night getting your offense going. It’s another to give the ball to a vastly inferior football six times. There’s charity and then there’s explosive football possession diarrhea. Rex apparently had some bad chimichangas for lunch.

For 15 minutes, the Bears’ defense, the one thing in sports you can hang your hat on, played…what’s the word I’m looking for…uh…poorly. They didn’t tackle. They couldn’t get the Cardinals into third down. They couldn’t get them off the field.

I’m pretty sure it took them 20 minutes or so to get the courage to hit Matt Leinart. Somebody must have told them how unlikely it is to get herpes on the football field. Besides, they play with Brian Urlacher…so…never mind.

Eventually the defense got it together. The 14-0 lead was all Cardinals. When it got to 23-3, well, those points were pretty much all Rex.

With 15 minutes and 10 seconds left, the Cardinals led by 20 points and the Bears offense was only a threat to score points for the Cardinals. You can’t lose a game like that. It’s impossible. Well, should be impossible.

I mean, I guess you could forget to block the defensive end inside your 10 yard line, have your quarterback get blindsided and fumble the ball for a touchdown. But even then there’s only 15 minutes left and you’re still up by 13 points against a team that can’t move the ball.

I suppose you could start running your former All-Pro running back off tackle on every play, and once the other team figures out that’s the only play you’re going to try, they take turns trying to stand him up and ripping the ball out of his arms. Then one of those times it works and that gets run back for a touchdown. But hell, even then there’d only be like eight minutes left and you still have the lead and they still can’t score on offense.

Then with like three minutes left you can punt the ball to them, but all you have to do is make sure the returner doesn’t run it all the way back for a touchdown. Seriously, if you can tackle him anywhere outside of your own 10 yard line, you’re still going to win.

OK, if that happens, now you’re down one. But you still have almost three minutes left. You just complete a few passes, get near the 25 yard line, bring out your Pro Bowl kicker, the guy who was 40 of 42 on the season last year, and the guy who missed a huge field goal last week. You know he’s not going to miss again. He’s too good to shank two game-winners in eight days, and then…oops.

Three things stood out in the aftermath, or afterglow, of this completely unlikely Bears win.  First, everybody who still tries to prove they’re deep-thinking football fans by saying nonsense like, “Brian Urlacher is overrated” should be forced to watch the final 15 minutes of that football game and then drink a nice big glass of shut the hell up.  Mr. Overrated completely took over a football game.  He was everywhere on defense.  It was almost like he looked back and saw that in the fourth quarter the safeties were Cameron Worrell and Todd Johnson (and they were) and said, “Shit, I’d better just make every tackle, just in case.”

Second, how does Devin Hester’s 83 yard punt return for the win not get more attention?  It was a great return, started by a great cut by Hester, continued by a “see you in Hawaii” block by Brendon Ayanbedejo, continued by another great cut by Hester, then broken open by a block by (guess who?) Urlacher, then finished off by Hester outrunning the entire state of Arizona.  The Bears’ offense had no chance of scoring a touchdown with three minutes to go.  They’d done nothing all day to show you it was going to happen.  The Cardinals should have felt safe to kick the ball away and let Rex spend the next four plays trying to throw a fifth interception, or fumble a third time.

Instead, Hester just said, “How about I just score here?” and the game was won.

Third, have you ever “known” an opposing kicker was going to miss a relatively routine kick any more than we knew Neil Rackers was going to shank the one with a minute to go?

I’m no Earl Hickey when it comes to karma, but sitting there in a hotel room in lovely Grand Rapids, I had no doubt that Rackers was going to miss.  Actually, I figured it was going to get blocked.  The comeback was too unbelievable, too outrageous to fall short.  Hell, at that point, I thought what we’d see was the ball snapped to the holder, then Urlacher leap over the line and eat the holder and the ball.  Either way, it was a great end to what was a surreal, and just plain disappointing evening.

I’m under no illusions that the Bears will go 16-0.  Frankly, I don’t care what their final record is.  It’s going to be good, and it’s going to be good enough for them to need only two home wins to go to the Super Bowl.  Every team, no matter how great plays a game or two that makes you wonder how they ever won a game in the first place.  The Bears certainly played one of those on Monday.

The great thing about the Bears is that they have top-notch units playing offense, special teams and defense.  If one has a rough night, the other two have a shot at carrying the mail.  That’s what happened in Arizona.  It certainly was aided by the Cardinals waiting around for something bad to happen.

What it reminded me of, was the Patriots’ season opener in 2003 when they got spanked 31-0 by the Bills.  They couldn’t have played worse.  Of course, five months later they won the Super Bowl.  This stuff happens.  You just can’t let it happen more than once or twice, and obviously, you can’t let it happen during the playoffs.

As for Dennis Green screeching, “The Bears are what we thought they were!” That’s nice.  It turns out, the Cardinals are what we thought they were, too.  Lousy.

Though they do have a quarterback.  Who proved that not only can he grow an entire beard during a game, but that he’ll take the licks, keep his calm and while he doesn’t have a cannon, the ball just seems to miraculously end up where it should, when it should, pretty much every time.  The kid’s good.

What do the Bears do on offense to get past this?  How about they just forget it happened?  Rex has struggled twice this season.  The first time, he responded with a lights out game against Seattle.  Chances are, he’ll do it again.  Actually, since there’s a week off and then the Niners…chances are that it’s a sure thing.

The Bears are 6-0.  They survived the cover of both Sports Illustrated and ESPN the Magazine in the same week.  What’s not to like?

By the way, with the Bills losing to the anemic Lions on Sunday, Bears’ opponents have now gone 0-4 in the week after playing the Beloved.  The Seahawks actually won their next game, but it took a bogus “we don’t run time off for illegal formation” rule clarification and they had a bye to soothe their wounds (so they didn’t win the week after playing the Bears).  The Bears’ Hangover will be put to the test this week, though.  The Cardinals play the Raiders.

Also, last week I referred to how the Saints had been winning with smoke and mirrors.  Then, they went out and beat the Eagles on Sunday, I guess I’d underestimated the boys of New Orleans.  They’re a great story.  So long as they know enough to get the hell out of the way if they end up in the path of the Bears march to Super Bowl XLI.