Chicago Bears: The 5 Best Teams That Never Won a Title
By Erik Lambert
#3: The 2006 Team
Oh what could’ve been. At the end of the day, the 2006 Bears were considered overachievers. Many didn’t expect them to get to the Super Bowl at all. In truth, it was a far better team than they got credit for. The problem wasn’t they weren’t good enough to beat the Indianapolis Colts that rainy day in Miami. They absolutely were. The problem was they didn’t have all the pieces needed to do it.
The Bears began that year 6-0 and it was spearheaded by a dominant defense focused around their triumvirate of Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, and Charles Tillman. All were in their primes. What many forget is they had two other stars on that unit in defensive tackle Tommie Harris and safety Mike Brown. Both Pro Bowlers.
They were huge parts of their early success.
Brown was lost to a foot injury after six games and Harris was lost to a hamstring after 12. Suddenly a defense that was allowing 12.5 points per game went to allowing 23.6 going into the Super Bowl. They weren’t the same team and it showed. When the Colts began to gash them up the middle, right where Harris and Brown would’ve been, it was a signal things would not end well.
It forced the burden of winning the game on Rex Grossman and the offense. That wasn’t going to happen and it didn’t.