Reality check: It's second city for Rex, Bears

MIAMI -- Finish? Finished. Crown their ass? Kicked it. Olin Kreutz wore all of that on his face late Sunday. He wore the weight of 15 wins and four losses and the four preseason games before that and the minicamps and OTAs and Bourbonnais and, of course, the stunning finality of the Bears' 29-17 loss to Indanapolis.

''You can say you learn from a regular-season loss,'' the most senior Bear said. ''You can say you learn from a playoff loss. But the Super Bowl is hard to get to. You're not promised another one. We believe we're going to get here again, but there's no guarantee.

''That's why this one hurts so much.''

It hurts because Lance Briggs might go to another team, and Ruben Brown might decide to ride his chopper off into the sunset, and because this is a proud team that had absolutely nothing to be proud of on a soggy evening in South Florida.

''We could have definitely put on a better show,'' Briggs said.

Then, softly echoing the Dennis Green rant that would have served as a great title on a highlight video, he added, ''We know who we are.''

So do we.

The ultimate statement game said nothing more about the Bears than has been said all along: As Rex Grossman goes, so do they -- and Grossman's evening went about as well as Prince's decision to drop a hunk of ''Proud Mary'' into his halftime show.

At least the artist formerly known as relevant came back with a Foo Fighters cover.

Grossman wasn't so lucky. A 16-14 halftime deficit only grew by evening's end, along with the target on his back as the quarterback had two interceptions, turned the ball over on one botched snap, was sacked after a second and tripped at midfield to be sacked again.

Asked, circuitously, if he knew he was going to take heat for his performance, Grossman ducked more stylishly than at any time on the Dolphin Stadium turf.

''That was a weird question the way you asked it, so I'm not going to answer it,'' he said.

He will, eventually. Maybe he'll even be as honest as his offensive coordinator was when asked about Grossman's form on the clinching, 56-yard interception return for a touchdown by former Illinois cornerback Kelvin Hayden.

''We had the look we wanted pre-snap,'' Ron Turner said. ''Then the snap was made, he opened his hips and really bailed out of there. He's not going to get behind it when he does that.''

By comparison, Peyton Manning's calm assurance, creativity and toughness made Grossman seem callow, armed with only the instinct for flight. The game MVP threw for 247 yards, the Colts ran for 191 and the Bears' defense missed a month's worth of tackles even when they guessed right.

In the swirling rains and general nastiness of the evening, that defense would have been a fitting star in the Bears' tradition of gridiron mayhem.

Devin Hester helped by scoring the quickest touchdown in Super Bowl history, his 92-yard return of the opening kickoff clocking in before the first dollop of guacamole hit the berber. Then Chris Harris' interception of Manning no doubt had fans smelling blowout.

It couldn't last. How could it on a team with too little experience in the secondary, too much mediocrity at wide receiver and way too much skittishness under center?

That the Bears still managed to keep the Colts within reach merely made the march toward the inevitable more agonizing.

And isn't that, ultimately, what this season was? Was there so little joy in so many wins because the flaws never vanished, even as the Bears succeeded in spite of them?

On the play before Grossman more or less ended the game, he gave fans one last bit of hope. With the Bears trailing 22-17, he hit Muhsin Muhammad for 22 yards and a first down. Then, the pick to Hayden.

Grossman, teasing and disappointing again. Perhaps it is something he'll outgrow.

Perhaps, too, the ''finish'' that Smith used as a mantra all season will be realized.

''We made excellent steps,'' Chris Harris said. ''We were 5-11 Lovie's first year, then 11-6, now 15-4. We learned. We'll be back.''

They used to say Manning couldn't win the big one -- but no one can say that now.

Maybe it's a miracle the Bears got this far, having lost a Pro Bowl safety and a Pro Bowl tackle from the middle of their defense.

Or maybe the Bears just weren't good enough.

Which, if you're being really honest, is kind of what was in the back of your mind all along, wasn't it?

Phil Arvia is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.