Lovie has redefined 'close'
Close is a relative geographic, psychological and emotional term.
If you want to think it, then the economy is close to a recovery, this winter is close to next summer and Barack Obama is close to Rush Limbaugh.
Anything can be in the neighborhood of anything - and in Lovie Smith's world, the Bears are down the block from competing at the highest level.
Perhaps the Bears' head coach isn't so wacky.
When Smith insisted his team was in the proximity of getting back to the Super Bowl, that was even before the Cardinals qualified for today's championship game against the Steelers.
The Cardinals' improbable rise prompted every NFL team, every Mountain West Conference team and every member of the Lingerie Football League to believe it's close to playing in a Super Bowl.
Northwestern went to the Rose Bowl - Tampa Bay went to the World Series - now the Cards are in the Super Bowl.
The belief is if the Wildcats could, and the Rays could, and the Cards could, well, anybody can-can, yes they can.
(Except the Cubs, that is.)
So maybe Lovie Smith is correct about the Bears. After all, they did finish 9-7, the same record the Cardinals had. What that suggests is if the Bears squeezed into the playoffs, they could have been the team that got hot, won three games and advanced to the Super Bowl.
The Bears just might be a mere two players away - let's say Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald. Find two more like them and you're right there.
Anyway, the problem with the premise is that the NFC neighborhood is overpopulated with teams thinking they're close.
Each might be, too, as the conference waits for a franchise to assert itself into being the team of the next decade.
That's what's so frustrating about the Bears. People around here think they should be that team. The Bears made it to the Super Bowl two years ago, raised hopes that management would sustain the surge and instead fell back into mediocrity. That's how it goes in the NFC, which has sent eight different teams to the Super Bowl during the last eight seasons.
Count them, folks: The Cardinals, Giants, Bears, Seahawks, Eagles, Panthers, Bucs and Rams. Meanwhile, only four AFC teams qualified during that period - the Patriots four times, the Steelers twice, the Raiders and Colts once each.
It isn't surprising, then, that Pittsburgh is favored by a touchdown to give the AFC its sixth Super Bowl victory over those eight seasons.
Parity fosters mediocrity. Building a team for a season of contention and then stumbling aside for someone else doesn't say much for the NFC.
The AFC has the Patriots, Steelers and Colts contending every year. The common denominator is each has had a stable organization, a quality QB and a sound playbook.
Is a team in the NFC primed for sustainable success? Maybe the Giants are with Eli Manning or the Falcons are with Matt Ryan. The other 14 teams are as close as the Bears are. They're looking for luck in all the wrong places to help them contend in any given year but not in a string of them.
If that's Lovie Smith's definition of close, he's absolutely correct.
mimrem@dailyherald.com