Souhan: Bears-Vikings game needs appropriate trophy

The Vikings-Bears series has devolved into one of those provincial Midwestern quasi-rivalries waged for some anachronistic totem, like a pig, jug, ax or kidney stone.

Vikings-Bears doesn't incite the incestuous hate of the Packers-Vikings conflict, which features embedded fans in both states. It doesn't rise to the historic level of the Packers-Bears border conflict. Vikings-Bears is more of a passive-aggressive relationship between aloof neighbors, known more for stern looks and awkward moments than instant-classic games.

But if Iowa-Minnesota features a trophy, Vikings-Bears deserves one, too. Here are a few suggestions:

Smokin' Jay Cutler doesn't care about footwork, winning, his teammates, your opinion of him or, apparently, the health of his lungs.

He earned the nickname by looking like the guy who's always begging off work to take a smoke break. So, these teams should play for an ashtray larger than his heart and smaller than his ego.

Brad Childress was born in Aurora, Ill., and played at Eastern Illinois. He prides himself on being a Chicago kind of guy. Once he got very angry with a reporter who wrote about his problems with the Vikings, because he knew his father, living in the Chicago area, would see the story.

Chili won a lot of games but did not influence a lot of people. Winner of the game gets a very large crockpot in which to heat a cup of bland chili. Serving size: one.

It was 1992. Denny Green had arrived in Minnesota and brought in Tony Dungy as his defensive coordinator. The Vikings were 3-1 and facing a test against Chicago in the Metrodome.

Jim Harbaugh led the Bears to a 20-0 lead in the fourth quarter. Then he called an audible. And threw the ball directly to Vikings safety Todd Scott, who scored the first points of a comeback that would give Rich Gannon and the Vikings a 21-20 victory.

After Harbaugh's audible and interception, he returned to the sideline, and Ditka tore into him. "I'm not going to put 47 players' futures in the hands of one player who thinks he knows more than I do,'' Ditka said after the game.

The Bears had made the playoffs in seven of the previous eight years, winning their lone Super Bowl after the '85 season. The loss at the Metrodome led them to a 5-11 finish. Harbaugh would return to the Bears in 1993. Ditka would not.

So reporters outside the locker room can't hear Brandon Marshall screaming at teammates.

Or, as Marc Trestman views them, the See No Evil glasses. Because, as he put it, "We have to be nonjudgmental'' when players scream at each other.

Walsh played for six NFL teams. He played in five playoff games.

He won one playoff game — the only one he played at the Metrodome. A few miles from where he grew up in St. Paul, Walsh's sneak-in-as-a-wild-card Bears upset the Vikes 35-18.

In the '80s, Ditka and Vikings GM Mike Lynn liked to trade barbs.

In 1987, Ditka accused Lynn of being too cheap to buy his cheerleaders roller skates. He called the Metrodome "The Rollerdome,'' saying it was fit only for skating, which was both insulting and accurate.

"I sent them with my good wishes, and I hope he wears them in our Rollerdome,'' Lynn said. "I wanted to prove I wasn't cheap.''

Said Ditka: "Mike Lynn sprung for them. That might refute everything I've heard about him from his players."

I don't see Mike Zimmer and Trestman exchanging gifts, or barbs.