The cure for what ails him

Staying confident the prescription for Grossman

There is a story about Bears quarterback Rex Grossman that has become the stuff of legend through the years. When he was a junior in high school in Bloomington, Ind., he joined an older cousin and his cousin's friend to form a team in the Gus Macker 3-on-3 basketball tournament.

The Gus Macker tournament is a pretty big deal. Started in Lowell, Mich., in 1974 when a group of 18 guys created a 3-on-3 tournament in a friend's driveway, it spread through their neighborhood and eventually extended to 75 cities with 200,000 players. Grossman's team advanced to the third round and a weekend date in Indianapolis.

Grossman stayed overnight at his cousin's house so the three could get an early start in the morning. Young Rex turned in early to get some rest before the tournament. The cousin and the friend went out for a night on the town and apparently partied a bit too much because they never came home that night.

Grossman waited for them as long as he could, then decided to drive himself to Indianapolis, figuring they would meet him at the tournament. They never showed up, so young Rex took on a three-man team by himself. He had to check the ball on every possession, which meant he had to dribble around to try to create a shot for himself. On defense, he stood in the middle of the court as a one-man zone.

The opposition didn't take the high schooler seriously until about midway through the game. Grossman ended up losing, but only by a point in overtime.

''I'm an Indiana guy -- I can shoot threes,'' he said with a shrug when asked recently about the story.

It takes some real audacity to go 1-on-3 and avoid a forfeit. Of course, it was only a week ago that Minnesota Vikings safety Darren Sharper was complaining that Grossman was too brash. With Bears coach Lovie Smith vowing to stay with him for another week, Grossman must tap into his vast reservoir of confidence if he's going to save his faltering season.

Grossman insisted during his preseason slump that he merely needed to establish himself in the NFL for people to dismiss a bad day at the office as just that. For a while, he did just that, and nobody was questioning his confidence. Now, he's establishing himself in a different way.

He was a study in contradiction after a miserable outing against the Vikings. First, Grossman insisted that nothing would shake his confidence because ''it's been going on for too long in my head.'' Later, he confessed: ''I'm thinking too much; I am trying to analyze things too much.''

It's an interesting dilemma. If Grossman has lost the mental game before stepping on the field, he's no good to the Bears. If he's as confident as he says, then he apparently can't play, so he's no good to the Bears.

The passing numbers against the Vikings were shockingly bad. Grossman's 1.3 passer rating was the lowest by a winning quarterback with at least 15 attempts since the Vikings overcame Gary Cuozzo's 0.0 rating in 1971. The 34 passing yards were the fewest by a winning Bears quarterback since Mike Phipps threw for 26 yards in a 14-0 victory against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1979. The six completions were the fewest by a winning Bears quarterback since, well, Kyle Orton last season against the Green Bay Packers.

Orton, of course, was replaced in the second half of the next game, and Grossman became the starter.

How do the Bears get Grossman out of his slump? It has to start with developing a safe game plan, perhaps the kind they would give to Brian Griese, a high-percentage passer who takes what a defense gives him. The problem is Grossman seems to take the long ball whether it's there or not. Is he willing to check down and play within the system instead of playing the one-man game?

The good news is the running game never has looked better. If the Bears can coax Grossman out of his slump, things look promising. If not, they'll have to make a change to a veteran with a high accuracy rate.

''We are still waiting to get everything to hit on all cylinders, to hit our stride, to peak,'' offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. ''We haven't done that yet. We have had certain parts of our game excel at different times. We haven't had it all, not once for four quarters. We have had parts of it, but I don't know that we've had a stretch where we have had everything going well.

''To me, that's a good thing. We have done some good things in the passing game, some good things in the running game. I would like to see us do it both at the same time.''

Running back Cedric Benson has been building toward a breakout game, and it might come against the woeful run defense of the St. Louis Rams. Benson finally seems to be producing beyond his opportunities, which likely has earned him more playing time, though Thomas Jones will remain the starter. It's a nice combination: fresh legs with Benson and toughness, leadership and awareness with Jones.

The coaches need to proceed with caution and be careful to keep Jones happy while giving Benson more time. While Jones knows every assignment and game situation, Benson still can miss the most obvious point, such as the fact his 24-yard touchdown run Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings came on fourth down.

"It was fourth-and-one? No [kidding]," Benson said after the game. "I didn't even know."

Kicker Robbie Gould continues to have an excellent season, but the recent rash of giveaways has prevented him from having the kind of record-breaking year he seemed destined to achieve. Gould made 22 field goals in the first eight games, an average of 2.8. But he has only four field goals in the last five games.

Once on pace to threaten the NFL's single-season scoring record, Gould now might not even break Kevin Butler's team record of 144 points. Gould is on pace for 149.

Not counting six fair catches, rookie Devin Hester has four touchdowns on 42 touches: 35 punt returns, six kickoff returns and a return of a missed field goal. That's an average of one touchdown every 10.5 times he gets the ball. The Bears have 33 kickoff returns in addition to the six by Hester, which means he theoretically could have three more scores if he had returned every kick.

Hester's four returns for touchdowns already have tied an NFL single-season record with four games remaining.

"It feels great, but I am not just happy with this success right now," Hester said. "I want to continue to do this throughout the season. Whenever you get an opportunity to get the ball in your hands, it's a great feeling. The more times I got my hands on the ball, the more I got in the groove and felt very comfortable with it."

Cornerback Ricky Manning Jr. played minor-league baseball in the Minnesota Twins' organization for three summers while at UCLA. Manning's last stop was in 2001 with the Quad City River Bandits, who let players pick their music for when they would go up to bat.

"My music was [the theme from] 'Monday Night Football,'" Manning said while humming the song. "I wanted to let them know I was going to the NFL."