These Bears look wintergreen

So it's cold, muck, Bears, slop.

I'm getting a little misty-eyed.

It's our civic duty to love this weather. It's the Bears' civic duty to smash someone in it. We wear the thermal socks, and the Bears float steam off the tops of their heads.

It's a binding contract. What does civic pride mean in Seattle? Well, when the cold wind arrived Tuesday, you had to laugh at the idea of Da Bears playing Da Half-Caff Lattes.

''Hopefully,'' offensive tackle John Tait said the other day, ''we can get some nice Chicago weather.''

I don't know. If weather does move in Sunday and Tait plays in short sleeves, then you might wander back to Steve McMichael and Dan Hampton, or to Wilber Marshall picking up the Rams' fumble in the '85 championship game and running for a touchdown as the snow started. Or maybe to Butkus and Buffone, jersey numbers covered up, wearing out.

The truth is, this season's Bears aren't built for Bear Weather.

This hasn't been your typical Chicago winter. My car has started every time but once, the scraper is still in the trunk and the sledding hill nearby is green. And these aren't your typical Bears.

Chicagoans like to identify with Bears toughness, which is why that tricky Gary Crowton short-pass offense from a few years ago was never going to sell. We like our baseball teams to hit home runs, our hockey teams to forecheck and our football teams to beat people up.

I went to a Bears game in Bear Weather last year, though it happened to be in Pittsburgh. The Steelers pounded the Bears, and Pittsburgh's Jerome Bettis said the snow and slop were ''clearly an advantage for us. We're a physical team, so bad weather and bad fields play into our hands. ... Chicago had a tough time coming in here.''

This Bears defense is based on first-step quickness. The '85 Bears had a Fridge on the line. These guys have Alex Brown, who twists and turns and uses quickness. If his feet slip on that first step, then Seattle will have a much bigger lineman getting a straight-on shot at him. Brown weighs 260 pounds, a little guy in today's NFL.

Fellow end Adewale Ogunleye is listed at 260, too. And linebacker Lance Briggs is 240.

''When we played, most of the offensive linemen were of comparable size [to the defensive linemen],'' Dan Hampton once told me about the '85 defense. ''Now, most of the offensive linemen are just big blobs, out of shape.

''Basically, we would ram into the offensive lineman and destroy his inertia. Then you read and go where the ball is. But today, Ogunleye and Alex Brown are like 260 pounds playing against 350-pound tackles. They're not able to do what we did physically. So they have to proactively address gaps.''

That requires getting to those gaps without slipping in the muck.

Meanwhile, has the new turf already been a problem? It was partly in place for the Dec. 31 game against the Packers, and the Bears were awful.

''I had half-inch cleats in,'' Bears receiver Muhsin Muhammad said. ''Normally, I don't slide at all when you put something that long in, and I still was sliding a little bit.''

Still, the Bears humiliated Seattle 37-6 early in the season. But the Seahawks were without the 2005 league MVP, running back Shaun Alexander. And they couldn't run.

Now Alexander is back. And the Seahawks are going to try to smash the Bears.

Look, the whole Bear Weather thing might be a myth, for all I know. In the late 1980s, San Francisco came in here, with Chicagoans talking all week about how the 49ers never would be able to take the weather with their little passing game. And then they blew out the Bears. San Francisco's legendary offensive line coach, Bobb McKittrick, spent the game -- which was played in a minus-26 wind chill, pacing the sideline in short sleeves, arms turning purple, then black, until coach Bill Walsh insisted he cover up.

Or maybe Bear Weather used to be an advantage but isn't anymore. In the old days, the Bears practiced outdoors in the misery. And they always had tough linebackers, great running backs and no quarterback to pass. They were suited for it, used to it.

But they have an indoor facility now, and a small, speedy team. Not just on defense, either. Doesn't Bernard Berrian need footing?

Do you really want to see Rex Grossman throwing in the wind?

Real or myth, stats can be used to make both cases. But it really doesn't matter. The Seahawks aren't that good; their only hope is Bear Weather.

That's weird. The Bears had better not get run over by a team from Seattle, not in Bear Weather on the lake.

Beef eaters don't get run over by fancy coffee drinkers.

Letters to our sports columnists appear Sunday. Send e-mail to inbox@suntimes.com. Include your full name, hometown and a daytime phone number.

Since their 1985 Super Bowl season, the Bears haven't fared well in postseason games played in so-called "Bear weather" (temperature below 40 degrees):

Date	Temp.	Result
1-3-1987	35	Redskins 27, at Bears 13
1-10-1988	4	Redskins 21, at Bears 17
12-31-1988	29	At Bears 20, Eagles 12
1-8-1989	17	49ers 28, at Bears 3
1-6-1991	30	At Bears 16, Saints 6
1-13-1991	32	At Giants 31, Bears 3
12-29-1991	35	Cowboys 17, at Bears 13
1-19-2002	31	Eagles 33, at Bears 19