Thursday Night Pick: Letting go

This being the 25th anniversary of the Chicago Bears legendary Super Bowl XX-winning team, we in the area have had to endure even more nostalgic mentions of that group than most regular seasons—which, for the most part, is still remarkably over-the-top. Considering that Bears team was my first real memory of professional sports on television, I've got a soft spot for that collection of characters too. But that said, I'm really quite over it now. And I've been over it for a while. A quarter-century is officially too long a time to still be basking in afterglow.

Of course, the hometown Bears are in Miami tonight, a city which never fails to elicit memories of the one blemish to that 1985 team's record that year. Looking back at that clip I've included here, it's still rather amazing to me that the Dolphins victory that Monday night 25 years ago remains the highest-rated telecast of that long-running program. (Oh, and of course it's even more incredible to see O.J. Simpson in the booth).

That game gets brought up every time the Bears have to face the Dolphins—even though Miami had a more recent occasion in which they ruined a Bears perfect season. But perhaps because Chicago didn't end up winning the Super Bowl that year, maybe everybody just forgot about it.
So the Bears certainly aren't flirting with perfection this season, but they are looking like a team with playoff hopes. So that's good enough to work up some around here into thinking about a playoff push.

And that, of course, is where Miami comes in tonight. They'll be starting a third-string QB while it sounds as though a starting tackle of theirs will be playing with one arm. That should be interesting, but keeping my feelings as a Bears fan in mind, this is my pick for tonight's game:

4 points
Miami Dolphins (5-4) over Chicago Bears (6-3)
+12/-14 : -3/1/-4 : +10/-15

For the record, I will continue to post the remainder of my weekend picks on Saturday night/Sunday morning*, so as to continue to reflect the Yahoo and Wunderdog picks at their last updated numbers before kickoff.

* - except perhaps for next weekend, but that's another story