Carolina at Chicago

Sunday (2:30 Mountain on FOX), the Carolina Panthers and Chicago Bears will face off for the right to lose to Seattle in the NFC Championship game. (Maybe.)

Last I checked, the Bears are three-point favorites over the Panthers. Why is that? I have no idea. Both teams sport identical 11-5 regular season records. Chicago is at home and beat the Panthers 13-3 Nov. 20. But the Panthers, in my mind, have been much better than the Bears.

I’ll take the upset here (Panthers to win) and then I’m going to tell you why…

1. Chicago has absolutely no offense. Not to get off-topic here, but the Detroit Lions were really bad this year, weren’t they? Coach got fired, GM ought to get fired…they really didn’t put it together, especially on offense, where Joey Harrington is on the verge of becoming a legendary bust.

Against the Bears’ vaunted defense, the Lions racked up nineteen points this year…that’s 19 points in two full games, plus an overtime. (And in typical Lions fashion, that overtime ended when quarterback Jeff Garcia threw a touchdown pass…to the wrong team.)

The Lions were 27th in the league in offense this year, racking up just 269.9 yards per game, or a little more than half of a Vince Young Rose Bowl. Man, they sucked. Wait a second…down there with them are the Chicago Bears, who were worse, ranking only 29th in yardage.

How about the Houston Texans, who have their prying eyes on Denver offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak for their new head coach? They could use him. Every time quarterback David Carr dropped back to pass, it was no longer a question of if he’d hit the turf, but when.

The Texans managed to put together enough offense to score a pathetic 16.3 points per game this year, ranking them 26th in the league. Maybe I should say tying them for 26th…tying them with the Chicago Bears.

2. Like in 2001, Chicago’s success is a house of mirrors. This year’s edition of the all-defense, no-offense-whatsoever Bears is eerily reminiscent of the 13-3 2001 team, right down to matching Coach of the Year awards for undeserving recipients Dick Jauron and Lovie Smith. (Or maybe they did deserve them; see below.)

That 2001 featured unheard-of luck, winning eight regular season contests by seven points or less. A lot of good it did them in the playoffs, where the Bears bowed out meekly to the physically superior Philadelphia Eagles in their first game…at home.

This year’s squad hasn’t been blessed with the same luck, but several final scores will give you pause. Chicago followed up the aforementioned 19-13 OT squeaker over Detroit with a 20-17 victory “at New Orleans” just a week later. Hmmm, maybe it was the 17-9 victory over the dominant 49ers the next week that convinced us all Chicago was for real.

Overall this season, Chicago outscored opponents by just 260-202, which, while it sure beats opponents outscoring you, is bad for an 11-5 team. The Panthers, meanwhile, had a much healthier scoreboard edge of 391-259.

Teams that play with fire in the NFL postseason usually get burned. Those that don’t get burned have Tom Brady.

3. The Panthers have a better coach. Congratulations to Lovie Smith on winning the Coach of the Year award. More accurately described as the Luckiest Coach Award, it’s an honor bestowed on whichever coach most defied expectations thanks not to superior leadership but to an easy schedule, weak division, favorable planetary alignment, or whatever.

Don’t believe me? There are three coaches left in the playoffs who have won multiple Super Bowls: Mike Shanahan, Joe Gibbs, and Bill Belichick. Together, they’ve combined for one Coach of the Year (Belichick’s in 2003). Meanwhile, San Diego coach Marty Schottenheimer, whose conservatism makes Ronald Reagan look like Karl Marx, has pocketed three of the awards.

Anyway, anyone who thinks Lovie Smith is a real threat to outcoach John Fox is completely off his rocker. Fox’s teams are always disciplined, hard-nosed, and mentally tough enough to compete at a high level in the biggest games. Smith’s teams are…well, it’s too early to say for sure.

Can Fox take a team on the road and win a pressure-packed postseason game? In 2003, his Panthers stormed into still-feared St. Louis and pulled out a victory, then followed that up with a road win over the Philadelphia Eagles for a Super Bowl berth. In other words, yes.