Urlacher in pursuit of defining moment

The biggest games are stages for the brightening of careers, the cementing of personalities, the burnishing of already gilded reputations.

Or the road to ruination.

Brian Urlacher knows this.

The Bears' middle linebacker is already a star of major proportions, the 2005 NFL defensive player of the year, the 2000 defensive rookie of the year, a six-time Pro Bowl selection.

He is large and fast and smart and has a head modeled after a high-caliber bullet.

But he does not yet have that defining moment of his stellar but still provincial career, the play or series of plays on the biggest stage of his life that can transcend the usual and define him for all time.

The NFC Championship Game on Sunday -- the deepest title drive of his seven-year career -- is a place to start.

''I'd like it to be my greatest game, obviously,'' Urlacher says in a private interview at Halas Hall. ''You want to do that every week.''

He shrugs his gee-whiz shrug.

''It's probably not gonna happen.''

That's the superb player of career modesty and low-key rhetoric, the guy who never brags, who takes the annual and stupid ''overrated'' barbs and lets them drop like so much lint at his feet.

It's the formerly naive Urlacher who has made some off-field missteps, with an embarrassing child-custody squabble made public, some dating adventures best left to the gossip pages.

But it's also the Urlacher who has learned to speak more expressively and more tolerantly with the media, who has learned that his smile means as much to children as his crunching hits do to adults, the Urlacher who realizes that people in this town -- indeed, Bears fans everywhere -- don't just like him. They worship him.

''What I want to do is make the big plays to help us win,'' he clarifies, pointing out that nobody knows how any game will go. God or goat -- the dice are rolling.

''That's all, the winning. I'm just so excited. I mean, this is all new territory.''

It has been 18 years since the Bears played in an NFC title game, 21 years since they won one.

The possibilities loom.

NFL Films will be locked and loaded.

The vaporous presence of Bill George, Dick Butkus and Mike Singletary -- former Chicago middle linebackers who made ''Bears'' and ''toughness'' synonymous -- will be hovering.

The 6-4, 258-pound Urlacher -- a former high school all-state wide receiver, for God's sake -- is so jacked up that it is torment for him even to speak of the possibilities of this game.

He knows that the Saints' No. 1-ranked offense presents problems that are not easy for a defense to overcome -- McAllister inside, Bush outside, Brees everywhere -- but that the opportunity for greatness comes with the challenge.

''I don't want to even think about it anymore,'' he semi-pleads. ''I'm not really nervous. I'm just excited. This is huge for our team, our organization, our city.''

You wonder if he ever gets so jacked he can't function, hyperventilates, loses his mind.

''No, I just get excited,'' he says. ''I've seen guys throw up. We've got a couple on this team. But I'm not a puker. I just get so pumped, so much adrenaline, and my heart starts beating fast. The thing I do is I play really fast at the start of games because I'm so pumped. I don't think I talk too fast, but I'm just like flying.

''I need that first pop to get me straightened out, a couple hits to calm down, get me knocked on my butt so I can get ready. You'll notice that in the first series I usually don't do crap.''

He laughs at himself.

And that genuineness and sense of self-deprecation is something that will be marketed along with the big interception, the huge hit, the fumble returned for a touchdown, the sacks, the things that might lead to glorious victory.

Or not.

Loss and failure aren't so marketable.

But that is the gamble all who would be great must take. Show what you got. Here. No excuses.

Urlacher knows the Bears' defense has not been that good of late, that the takeaways -- the defense's signature mark -- have not been coming as often as they should.

And without creating chaos and stealing the ball, the defense cannot beat the Saints' offense.

''Other teams have got to be looking at film and seeing what we're trying to do,'' Urlacher says with concern. ''They know we're trying to strip the football. Guys are putting two hands on the ball when they're going down now. They know we're coming to get it.''

Just as fate is coming to get No. 54 himself.

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