Get behind me, Satan!

No, the Green Bay Packers are no longer the kind of team that puts fear in the hearts of the NFC North... much less the league at large.

But to the Chicago Bears, beating the Packers at Soldier Field is an enormous step. Even in their magical 2001 season, when their regular-season play was sprinkled with pixie dust, the Bears couldn't beat Brett Favre and crew on the shores of Lake Michigan.

But on Sunday, we beat the Devil. Intercepted him. Pounded him. We hit the Devil in the back and caused him to fumble. Amen.

So let us celebrate Sunday's 19-7 victory. Let us celebrate our amazing cornerbacks, Peanut Tillman and Nathan Vasher. Let us give praise to our running game and our run-stoppers, to Thomas Jones and Tommie Harris, to John Tait and Lance Briggs. Let us savor the moment.

Breathe in. Hold it. Exhale.

OK, now: Back to business.

Let's get serious. The Bears are 9-3, within striking distance of home field advantage throughout the playoffs, and it's time to take stock of the season and the franchise. No more pussyfooting around.

The defense: Playing to win
In the off-season I told several people that the Bears would be a Top 5 defense if they stayed healthy. The only glaring question mark, I said, was the SAM position and general depth at linebacker.

After 12 games, the Bears are the No. 1 defense in the league -- and not just statistically, or in points allowed. They're the best defense in the NFL because they're a game-changing, attack-the-offense kind of unit.

From a 2005 perspective, there's no reason to believe that they've peaked. If anything, this unit seems to be improving, getting more aggressive, more sly, more alert. Sunday's game likely cost us rookie safety Chris Harris for a few weeks, but the Bears have two good safeties behind him, and they still go three-deep at every position but linebacker.

On how many NFL teams would Jerry Azumah be a nickel back? How many teams could afford the luxury of a Tank Johnson coming off the bench, or an inactive Michael Haynes?

From the franchise perspective, the picture is even brighter. All our defensive starters are signed through 2007, and none of them has been in the league longer than six years. Tillman, Vasher, Briggs, Brian Urlacher, Wally Ogunleye, Alex and Mike Brown and Tommie Harris are all having Pro Bowl-quality seasons.

In fact, the biggest danger to this unit is that its success could get defensive coordinator Ron Rivera a job elsewhere. Of course, if that happens, watch the Bears sign Mike Singletary as their DC.

This is both the best defense in the league and the best young defense in the league, and for this we should credit GM Jerry Angelo. Its foundation may have been laid before his arrival, with the drafting of Urlacher and Brown 1-2 six years ago, but it was Angelo who brought in the rest of these guys. He used high draft picks (Harris, Haynes, Briggs and Tank Johnson), mid-rounders (Vasher, Ian Scott and Alex Brown) and late-round finds (Chris Harris). He traded for a rising star (Ogunleye) and nabbed people off the waiver wire (Hillenmeyer). This is what you ask for from a general manager, and the man deserves his props.

In short, this is a defense that's capable of winning a Super Bowl right now, and it's entirely capable of making the Bears a contender for much of what remains of this decade.

A wise man once said, "Defense wins championships." But a wiser man added "so long as the offense puts points on the board."

The offense: Playing not to lose
The best job in the world? Bears offensive coordinator. Why? Because the bar has been set so incredibly fucking low.

In 2003, the Bears had perhaps the worst offensive coordinator in the history of the game. Once, facing fourth and goal from about the 13, this bozo actually called a play-action pass. My son, who was 13 at the time, immediately burst out laughing. "He called play action? On 4th and long? Even I know that's stupid."

That man's name was John Shoop, and to grasp how bad things have been in Chicago, you have to understand that when Shoop was promoted to the job, it originally looked like an improvement. That's because his predecessor, Gary Crowton, was out of his mind.

Crowton came to Chicago with a reputation as an offensive innovator. Fans liked the sound of that. We were tired of offenses that threw the ball only on third and long, and then only with great fear and trepidation. When Crowton's pass-happy approach failed to produce, our first thought was that the players just needed time to grasp the promising concept.

But it turned out that while the players were learning it, so were the league's defensive coordinators. In his second season, Crowton's offense was exposed as a cheap gimmick. Unable to trick defenses or even to communicate with his own players, Crowton was history. In comparison, Shoop looked sharp.

The pixie-dust 13-3 season of 2001 masked all sorts of flaws, not these least of which was these: Dick Jauron was a guy who simply wouldn't fire a coach for being incompetent. So the more the media and the fans called for Shoop's head, the more Jauron stuck with him. This, if nothing else, should have been grounds for dismissal. If I'd have been the coach, I'd have fired the guy on the spot for that 4th-down play-action bullshit.

After Jauron and Shoop came Lovie Smith, who brought Kansas City quarterbacks coach Terry Shea to town. Shea was supposed to install the Dick Vermeil/Mike Martz offense, and he arrived with great fanfare. He brought his backup quarterback, Jonathan Quinn, promising that the guy was a skilled veteran who could run the show if Rex Grossman went down. He got the perfect running back for his offense, too, in free agent Thomas Jones. And Shea made an impression from the first, running around with great enthusiasm at training camp, chasing down players after long runs and hopping about like an over-caffinated toad.

Yes, Shea was emotional, energetic, encouraging ... and perhaps certifiably insane. He micromanaged. He called strange plays. He was paranoid. His offense imploded with Grossman's knee, and Jonathan Quinn, the seasoned backup he'd brought from Kansas City was immediately exposed as the worst Bears quarterback in a long string of inept signal-callers.

Had Jauron been the coach, Shea would have gotten a second chance, but this was the moment when we learned something important about Coach Smith: Lovie don't play that shit. He sent Shea packing as soon as the season ended, thenre-hired the best OC the Bears have ever had: Ron Turner.

Turner's 1995 Bears offense earned him the head coaching job at Illinois -- and his tenure there went sour just in time for him to become available to return to his old job. He arrived at what appeared to be a good moment: Angelo had identified the offense as his area of concern in 2005, and the unit received his full attention in the offseason.

There were new additions everywhere. The team signed veteran receiver Muhsin Muhammad within the opening minutes of free agency, then added offensive linemen Fred Miller and Roberto Garza. The draft brought running back Cedric Benson, wide receiver Mark Bradley and quarterback Kyle Orton. With quarterback Rex Grossman rehabbed from his knee injury, the team entered the 2005 preseason with reason for optimism.

In retrospect, most fans would have considered a 9-3 start optimistic even with Grossman at QB. How many of it us thought such a thing was possible with Orton under center? Exactly none. Kyle Orton has been the quarterback since Week 1, giving the team stability at the position for the first time since Erik Kramer's Mentos season in 1995.

By NFL standards, Orton is below mediocre. For a rookie quarterback, however, he is within striking distance of multiple records for first-year players. On the one hand, here's an NFL starter who throws more interceptions than touchdowns, the leader of an offense that is averaging just 14 points per game. On the other, this is a guy who has intangible qualities that make you think he will have a long NFL career.

What struck me Sunday, though, was how Orton's arc this season seems to be synching up perfectly with Grossman's rehab. Over 12 games, Orton has been good enough to win or keep the Bears competitive in 11 of them. That's remarkable. But you also get the sense in watching him that he hasn't really progressed in the past month. He looks like a kid who is hitting the rookie wall, who needs a little time to process all that he has learned. And yet the team keeps winning.

You respect the streak. Eight in a row is something special, and you ride that wave as far as it will take you. But sooner or later, all waves break. Will this one break next week at Pittsburgh? The week after in Atlanta? Or will it break at Green Bay or Minnesota? All I know is, the best thing that can happen to this team would be for the break to come before the playoffs. Because the day after that first loss, two things will occur.

First, Orton will shave his neck beard. And second, Lovie Smith is going to sit down with Turner and QB coach Wade Wilson. And they're going to talk about Rex Grossman.

If Grossman is healthy, he's probably a better quarterback than Orton is right now. You can't replace Orton so long as he's winning, but once that streak ends, all bets are off -- particularly if Orton continues to play like he has recently.

Other quarterbacks in the NFL are hanging on for dear life, trying to stay healthy for the playoffs. Only Chicago has gotten this far without the team's No. 1 QB taking a snap. And to me, this is the storyline that gets my blood pumping: What if Grossman returns and the offense improves, even a little bit? How much better is this team if it gets just a little bump in performance and confidence?

Let's say Grossman returns and gets his first playing time against Atlanta. Maybe he gets his first start at Lambeau, or, more likely, in the coda at Minnesota. Let's say he's good but not great, chugging along at at 75.0 QB rating, tossing between 190-210 yards per game and staying even between TDs and INTs. Let's say Cedric Benson returns and the defense stays healthy.

Give me that scenario, and I'll make a prediction: The Bears win the NFC Championship.

As Orton has proven, the Bears don't need great QB play to win. But even a 10 percent improvement would pay disproportionate and immediate dividends. A little boost means two or three more 3rd down conversion each week. It means a punt becomes a field goal. It means a field goal becomes a touchdown.

Right now, the Bears average less than 17 points per game. Bump that average up to 21 ppg down stretch and you're talking about the second of third-best team in the NFL.

But Grossman is more valuable than that, because Grossman offers something Orton can't: Hope. Because in the playoffs, if you're playing to protect your quarterback, you're playing to lose. Because in the playoffs, somebody is going to get you down. At some point, the Bears are going to have to put the ball in their quarterback's hands and say "Go win this thing." You can't do that with Orton right now, not with a straight face.

If we're going to lose, this week against Pittsburgh would be as good a time as any to do it. I'll be disappointed when the streak ends, but if Grossman moves up to the No. 2 QB and starts taking more snaps with the first string, I'll feel better. I'll understand that everything is fitting into a script too fantastic to believe. I'll start believing in destiny.

From the franchise perspective, the Bears are in decent shape at quarterback. Orton and Grossman give them a pair of legit young competitors, the kind of one-two punch every team needs. They can win with either one.

Wide receiver is clouded by the injury to Mark Bradley, who proved in just a few weeks that he has the skills to be a legit NFL starter. If he's the same player after rehab, then the Bears will enter 2006 with at least four functional wideouts: Muhammad No. 1, Bradley No. 2, Berrian No. 3 and Gage No. 4. That leaves them two spots for special teams use or development. Desmond Clark is a journeyman tight end.

Running back will also hinge on health. If Benson is OK, then Thomas Jones becomes an interesting commodity. He's established himself as a 1,000-yard runner and a dangerous threat from anywhere on the field, the kind of player that multiple NFL teams covet. Obviously, you'd love to keep a player like that, but Jones may want something more than a share of an offense that is more suited to Benson. My guess is the 2006 Bears will be a three-headed RB monster, but I wouldn't be shocked to see Jones move to another team in a trade (New York Jets?) on Draft Day.

The offensive line has played well, but it's also the area of biggest concern for 2006.

Special teams: JUST HOLD ON TO THE DAMNED BALL!
As bad as the offense has been, our special teams aren't far off. Gould is a weak kicker and absolutely the wrong kind of a guy for a team built around defense. Let's hope Angelo upgrades the position in the off-season.

Let's also hope he brings in a punt returner. Bobby "Mr. Fumbles" Wade isn't the answer, so goodbye.

Our coverage teams have been good, so not everything is a shambles. Plus you gotta love the play we're getting out of Brad Maynard. It's just hard to see that when every punt return is an adventure.

2005 outlook
I expect to see the Bears finish no better than 3-1 over the final two weeks of the season, with 2-2 more likely. They'll enter the playoffs with Grossman at quarterback and win at least one game. If they get home-field advantage, they'll run the NFC and lose to Indianapolis in Super Bowl XL.

2006 outlook
Chicago has plenty of cap room, but I'd be surprised to see them bring in more than one top-tier free agent. Most of that money will go to locking down young stars on defense.

Look for the Bears to draft plenty of offensive linemen high in April -- and don't be surprised if that one top-tier FA is a tackle. The only other obvious "need" position really isn't a glaring hole -- the Bears need linebacker depth and competition for Hillenmeyer.

And here's my surprise pick: If I were Angelo, I'd put my off-season emphasis on finding a premiere kicker. I might even trade for a guy like Neil Rackers -- even if it cost me a high pick to get him. A team built like this one doesn't need an average kicker -- it needs a great one, with a huge leg, someone who can hit from outside 50 and drive kickoffs to the goal line time after time.

The Bears have built a foundation, and the current set of players means we'll have a window of opportunity that should last for at least another two or three years. But in the end, it really does come down to the question we were asking back in July: How far can Grossman take us?

The answer could be the most dramatic storyline in the NFL in 2005.