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We always get our best advice from washed-up old men. It reconfirms our belief that it’s all going to end badly for us.

 

Take, for example, Rocky Balboa’s salty old trainer, Mickey Goldmill (bet you didn’t know his last name).

 

Mickey told Rocky that balance is going to make our favorite Pennsylvania pugilist a very dangerous fighter.

 

“You’re gonna eat lightning and crap thunder,” cracked Burgess Meredith’s legendary character.

 

His faith in balance reminds us right now of the Chicago Bears. For the first time in two decades, the Bears are eating lightning and crapping thunder all over the NFL.

 

After the first five weeks of the season, the Bears rank in the Top 10 in all four major offensive and defensive categories (scoring offense, scoring defense, total offense and total defense). The last time they finished that high in all four categories?

 

That’s right – the legendary 1985 season.

 

The 2006 Bears are plowing through their opponents, they face a cakewalk schedule and they are poised to challenge a series of historic landmarks that only the Cold, Hard Football Facts have chronicled. Balance has been the key.

 

The Monsters of the Midway have always been big on defense.

 

It’s part of the image people across the country have of the City of Broad Shoulders. When you think Chicago, you think bone-crushing defense and ferocious middle linebackers, from Bill George and Dick Butkus (pictured here) to Mike Singletary and Brian Urlacher.

 

But it seems that the Bears forgot over the past two decades that it’s better in the NFL to be solid on both sides of the ball than it is to be dominant on just one.

 

Chicago looked content to try to win with defense and special teams and to model itself after the 2000 Ravens. But that Baltimore team was the rarest of birds: It won despite an utter lack of balance. It helped, of course, that the Ravens fielded the stingiest defense of the Live Ball Era, even more dominant than those of the Mike Ditka/Buddy Ryan Bears. The Ravens also had a fairly competent quarterback in Trent Dilfer, who took the bulk of the snaps that year.

 

But most unbalanced teams simply fizzle out and die, no matter how good they are on one side of the ball.

 

The 2001 Bears, for example, went 13-3 and fielded the No. 1 scoring defense in football (12.7 PPG). But quarterbacks Jim Miller and Shane Matthews could not attack downfield with any regularity. The Bears averaged just 5.82 yards per attempt that season. (Piss-poor play at quarterback has been another Chicago hallmark, as the Cold, Hard Football Facts have discussed in great detail.)

 

Last year’s Bears? Forget about the 11-5 record, the NFC North title and the No. 1 defense (12.6 PPG) in the NFL. Without a solid passing game – the Bears ranked dead last with 5.27 yards per attempt – they failed to win a single playoff game.

 

The problem in both seasons, of course, was a lack of balance. The Bears could eat lightning, but they couldn’t crap thunder.

 

The Bears last year ranked near the bottom of the league in every major offensive category and the job of shouldering the offensive load fell to Kyle Orton. He was asked to be the dreaded “game manager.” But the overmatched rookie fourth-round draft pick managed only to knock the Bears off balance.

 

This 2006 version is changing our perception of the Bears – and reinforcing our belief in balance. Thanks to a healthy Rex Grossman and a change in philosophy, the Bears are the most improved team in the NFL.

 

Credit Mickey’s good buddy balance for the turnaround. Last year, for example, the Bears had the worst passing game in the league. Heading into Week 5, they had the best, averaging a league-leading 7.9 yards every time they had dropped back to pass. Their average dropped slightly after the game against Buffalo, to 7.4 yards per attempt. But when you destroy an NFL opponent 40-7, that small statistical decline is merely trivial.

 

It seems that Chicago’s opponents have yet to recognize this strength. Maybe it’s because the Bears still have a pretty fair running back in Thomas Jones and opponents have focused on slowing him down. They’ve certainly succeeded at that this year.

 

Jones has rushed for just 388 yards and 3.7 YPC this season, after picking up 1,335 yards and 4.3 YPC last season. His 2005 numbers are impressive when you consider that every opposing coach – even Mike Tice – knew he’d get the ball in key situations.

  

But that’s the beauty of balance. Chicago’s opponents are all keyed up to stop the ground game … and the balanced Bears can now pick them apart through the air.

 

It has obviously paid off: Chicago is 5-0 and its truly phenomenal +120 point differential is best in the league. That puts them in good historic company, even at this point in the season. As the Cold, Hard Football Facts demonstrated earlier this week, teams that jump out to such a dominant start to the season have a pretty strong tendency to make the Super Bowl.

 

Over the past 10 years, only the 1999 Rams surpassed the 2006 Bears in point differential after five games. That Rams team was a nifty +123 after five games. And, of course, they ended the season with a Super Bowl victory.

 

The Bears are also outgaining opponents by a remarkable 121.8 yards per game this season (356.4 to 234.6).

 

That kind of dominance must come as a shock to long-suffering Bears fans. This is a team, after all, that has been outgained by its opponents for an incredible nine of the past 10 years. Even in 2001, when the Bears went 13-3, their opponents outgained them week after week. 

 

Here’s how the Bears and their opponents stack up in average yards per game over the last 10 years:

  

Year	Bears YPG	Oppt. YPG	Differential	Record
2005	268.7	281.8	-13.1	11-5
2004	266.6	336.9	-70.3	5-11
2003	291.7	315.7	-24.0	7-9
2002	291.2	366.1	-74.9	4-12
2001	300.9	329.5	-28.6	13-3
2000	296.3	341.5	-45.2	5-11
1999	358.7	372.6	-13.9	6-10
1998	311.9	329.7	-17.8	4-12
1997	327.9	321.7	+6.2	4-12
1996	316.9	318.3	-1.4	7-9

 

The Bears reached the postseason just twice in that span and have not won a playoff game since 1994.

 

Balance almost always pays off – even when it’s well-hidden. People perceived the 2005 Steelers as a rugged, nasty team that wanted to chew up its opponents with the running game. They did run the ball more than any team in football last year … but they also led the league in yards per pass attempt.

 

Chicago coach Lovie Smith is apparently content to perpetuate the belief that the Bears are a hard-running team. “We’ll get off the plane running the football,” he said prior to his team’s 19-16 win at Minnesota in Week 3.

 

He lied.

 

The Bears attempted 41 passes to 21 rush attempts, and it was Grossman’s late 24-yard TD pass to Rashied David that provided the winning margin.

 

The quarterback-led, come-from-behind victory over Minnesota in Week 3 will remind Bears loyalists of another Week 3 come-from-behind victory over Minnesota – 21 years ago.

 

Back in that magical 1985 season, injured quarterback Jim McMahon came off the bench to fire three second-half touchdown passes and lead the Bears to a 33-24 victory. An unbalanced team would not have won that game.

 

The 1985 Bears jumped all over NFC powerhouse Washington in Week 4, blowing out the Redskins 45-10. Sounds a lot like the 2006 Bears, who jumped all over defending NFC champion Seattle in Week 4, blowing out the Seahawks 37-6.

 

There will be many parallels drawn between the 1985 and 2006 Bears, provided the current team keeps winning. But the primary parallel is this: Both teams have balance. Everyone remembers the great defense of that 1985 team. But they also had a Hall of Fame running back, a Pro Bowl quarterback, a pair of Pro Bowlers on the offensive line … and the No. 2 scoring offense in football that year.

 

Can the Bears be stopped?

  

The Bears have already dispatched the defending NFC champs with ease and the regular-season schedule provides few challenges. Chicago’s butter-soft schedule does not offer a single quality opponent until a Nov. 26 trip to New England (4-1). They follow that with games against Minnesota (3-2) and St. Louis (4-1) in what passes for the toughest stretch of their entire 2006 campaign.

 

Six of Chicago’s final 11 opponents are the worst teams in football: Arizona (1-4), San Francisco (2-3), Miami (1-4), Tampa Bay (0-4), Detroit (0-5) and Green Bay (1-4). The combined record of their final 11 opponents is 20-33 (.377).

 

Chicago’s performance so far – along with its easy schedule – has put the pigskin historians in us on alert:

If they were to maintain this pace – a 24.0 PPG differential – the 2006 Bears would easily surpass the 1968 Colts and 1999 Rams as the most dominant teams of the Super Bowl Era. No team in modern NFL history has posted a season-long point differential of better than 18.4 PPG. The 1985 Bears had a scoring differential of 16.1 PPG (28.5-12.4).

 

The Bears are also on pace to field the stingiest defense in modern NFL history. The current record is held by the 1977 Falcons, who allowed just 9.2 PPG. But they did it at the very apex of the Dead Ball Era. The Bears are allowing 7.2 PPG in a Live Ball Era that favors offense. (That Falcons team, by the way, went just 7-7. Their problem? Of course, it was a lack of balance. The 1977 Falcons couldn't score points and averaged just 12.8 PPG.)

 

It’s far too early to ask if the Bears can go undefeated. But the ease of Chicago’s schedule cannot be discounted. The undefeated 1972 Dolphins provide the perfect case study. They were certainly a great team – but a great team that faced the easiest schedule in modern NFL history. Miami’s opponents that year had a combined record of just 70-122-4 (.367), and they faced just two quality opponents in the regular season.

 

Great team + easy schedule = undefeated season.

 

The Bears have the same opportunity in front of them – they are a great team with an easy schedule. And, like that 1972 Dolphins team, they have balance. The Dolphins were No. 1 in scoring offense and No. 1 in scoring defense, the same position the Bears find themselves in today. We remember the mighty Miami ground game. We forget the Dolphins were balanced: They had the No-Name defense, the Hall of Fame quarterback (Bob Griese) and the electrifying, Hall of Fame wide receiver (Paul Warfield).

 

Balance is the order of the day in the NFL. And right now, no team in football is more balanced than the Bears.