Imrem: Nice to see Packers' Peppers have a big game

Maybe I'm the only one around here who is happy for Julius Peppers.

To me, guys like him are easy to respect. You know, guys you hear about as athletes but not much else.

Peppers plays for the Packers now instead of the Bears. He wears a linebacker's No. 56 instead of a defensive end's 90. He looks frisky at age 34 instead of used up at age 33.

Must be the fresh air up in Wisconsin.

Peppers made some prominent plays Sunday — a sack and 2 forced fumbles among them — to help the Packers beat the Cowboys 26-21 in Lambeau Field.

Next week, Peppers will play against the Seahawks for the opportunity to go to the Super Bowl. Good for him, indeed.

Peppers served the Bears well for four seasons. His only problem here was he is so physically gifted that the tendency was to always want more from him.

That aside, Peppers conducted himself nobly on and off the field. But this isn't to regret that the Bears let him go because it was time for both him and them to move on.

Peppers moved on to play for the NFC title next week while the Bears moved on to a 5-11 record and Halas Hall purge.

NFL free agency is like the month of March: The new enter like lions and the old exit like lambs.

Added to the Bears' defensive line were Jared Allen, Lamarr Houston and Willie Young ... signed and introduced to much fanfare.

Meanwhile, Julius Peppers was thanked for his service in a statement released by the team and he thanked them in return, all very quietly.

Peppers deserved a little more of a send-off as someone who was intriguing simply because he generated so little intrigue while in town.

Considering the state of sports, maybe Peppers was likable because we didn't really hear much about him.

Too many athletes are in the news for their relationships with fast women and faster cars, with booze and dope, with guns and lawyers.

During Peppers' time in Chicago, were there any reports about him being involved with anything bad?

Peppers' name did come up in an academic scandal in college at North Carolina, but that had nothing to do with his professional life here.

We really don't know any of these guys, do we? However, police reports and gossip columns often expose something about them ... but with Peppers, no, none of that.

That just wasn't his style. Peppers was just a football player for the Bears, not someone who gravitated toward cameras and microphones in search of commercial endorsement opportunities.

Publicly anyway, Peppers was a quiet giant — 6-feet-7 and 285 pounds with Olympic athleticism — who spoke to the media when the media spoke to him.

Peppers didn't seem to have any agendas but to play football. There was no drama over his role, his injuries or his presence in the locker room.

He was just Julius Peppers, football player.

In that respect Peppers reminded me a lot of Jermaine Dye, just a solid guy who came to Chicago to play ball, became a World Series star for the White Sox and soon was gone.

Neither Dye nor Peppers contributed anything unsavory along the way, which shouldn't be unusual but in a way is.

Considering all the junk so many athletes get into, we don't give enough credit to the ones who conduct themselves in a classy manner.

So maybe it was fitting Sunday to smile when Julius Peppers made a big play ... even if it was for the Packers.