Urlacher lament: Poor tackling

MIAMI -- He never felt like it was him vs. Peyton Manning.

Urlacher tipped Manning's first pass, intended for tight end Dallas Clark, and the Colts' first possession ended in an interception. But after that, it was all smooth sailing for the Colts' offense. They pushed the ball straight down the field.

''We didn't change our defense,'' Urlacher said when asked if he felt like it was a mano-y-mano affair. ''We didn't audible. We had a plan and we stuck to it.

''It was never myself against him. You play football as a team. It's a team game. It was never going to be me vs. him. I never felt that way.''

The best player on the Bears' defense wasn't able to make enough of an impact, but it would be unfair to single him out. The Bears got a faint pass rush. While they covered the deep ball well with the exception of one blown play -- a 53-yard strike to an uncovered Reggie Wayne for a first-quarter touchdown -- they didn't make plays on the underneath stuff. Indianapolis took what it was given and held the ball for 38 minutes, 4 seconds.

''We just didn't do a good job of tackling,'' said Urlacher, who was credited with 10 tackles. ''We're a better team than that. But you have to give them some credit. They are the world champions.''

On the blown coverage on Wayne's touchdown, rookie free safety Danieal Manning did not get the cover-2 call. He was totally out of position, and w cornerback Charles Tillman passed Wayne off deep, the only thing behind him was the end zone.

''We're a smart defense, and we didn't play very well on a couple plays,'' Urlacher said. ''That's on me. I've got to get everyone the call. We looked at our wristbands, and we had some guys get the wrong number. I've got to get that communicated better.

''We played the cover-2, and one of the weaknesses of a cover-2 defense is the checkdowns. Peyton knows that. He executed well. He threw a lot of checkdowns, but we really needed to do a better job of tackling.''

Urlacher will have an offseason to reflect on what it will take to get back to this point, what it will take to do what many of the greats in the history of the franchise never accomplished -- win the big one.

''There were a lot of things we could have done better,'' he said. ''We could have tackled better, covered better. We could have done a lot of things. When you lose, you look at everything.''

bbiggs@suntimes.com<