Let the backbiting begin in Chicago

Stories about team chemistry tend to crack me up.

Why?

Because when teams win, the chemistry always is good.When teams lose, the chemistry always is bad. Period. End of story.

The Vikings are smiling, smacking behinds and still laughing at ESPN's premature preseason report of a locker room "schism" created by the signing of Brett Favre. Basically, the Vikings now declare themselves one big happy family, which they may very well be. Of course, they're also 10-1. Will the same perception of players hugging and singing kumbaya while roasting marshmellows at the Wilf estate still exist if for some odd reason they go 12-4 and lose in the first round of the playoffs?

The Bears were feeling close and content when they were 3-1. Six losses in seven games later, they're 4-7, out of the playoff hunt and, well, miserable. If you're looking for a family comparison, consider the Bears about as close as Tiger Woods' family is right now.

Chicago has slumped into full Backbiting Bears mode following injured linebacker Brian Urlacher's candid interview with Yahoo! Sports. Chicago Sun-Times beat writer Brad Biggs has a story today detailing the in-house bickering in the aftermath of Urlacher's interview.

Urlacher criticized the Jay Cutler trade, saying it changed the team's once-successful identity as a smash-mouth running team.

Cutler, who's actually never had a winning record in college or the NFL, took the criticism in stride publicly, saying "I'm going to get a lot of blame, and I'm aware of that, and a lot of it should come my way. I know Brian's frustrated. I'm frustrated. There's not much we can do.

"[Urlacher] doesn't have to apologize to me. I talked to him. I understand what he's talking about. It's frustrating. It's frustrating for everybody in that locker room. I know where he's coming from."

Urlacher also ripped running back Matt Forte for not trying to make tacklers miss, thereby making them look good. Forte didn't take the criticism in stride. In fact, while defending himself, he ended up taking a subtle shot at the offensive line.

"Urlacher has his own opinion," Forte said. "If I couldn't make anybody miss, I probably wouldn't be playing pro football.

"We've got to make people miss; we've got to block people; we've got to do a lot of things. It's not one particular thing that's hampering the offense. We're hurting ourselves most of the time."