Depleted LB corps still gets job done

SEATTLE - Lance Briggs looked around the linebacker area of the locker room late Sunday afternoon and made an observation.

"We've got a lot of fallen soldiers," Briggs said.

The Bears lost another linebacker against the Seattle Seahawks when Hunter Hillenmeyer went down with a rib injury, but Nick Roach moved over to the middle, Jamar Williams took Roach's strong-side spot, and the linebackers kept making plays in a 25-19 comeback victory.

"That's the type of players we have in here," Briggs said.

With middle linebacker Brian Urlacher already lost for the season with a dislocated wrist and strong-side linebacker Pisa Tinoisamoa out with a sprained knee, the Bears are running out of linebackers.

"Brian went down and Hunter took his place and filled in well," Briggs said. "Hunter goes down and Nick comes in and does well in his place."

The middle linebackers keep passing the torch and fighting on.

Roach found himself playing the middle after focusing almost solely on strong-side linebacker during training camp. He made 7 tackles Sunday to tie Briggs for high among linebackers.

"Honestly, with the guys that we have around us, like Lance helping me make a lot of the defensive calls, we feel comfortable," Roach said. "The D-line was still going to do what they do. The defensive backs, too.

"So it wasn't really difficult. It was making sure I was tuned in to that position instead of outside."

Roach made two huge plays after sliding to the middle. The first one came with 7:38 left in the third quarter when he blitzed and forced Seattle quarterback Seneca Wallace out of the pocket to his right.

Wallace threw an ill-advised pass that Briggs intercepted and returned to Seattle's 14-yard line. The Bears added a Robbie Gould field goal of 37 yards for a 17-13 lead.

Bears linebackers blitzed repeatedly for the second straight game as their defense started looking more like the "46" of Buddy Ryan than coach Lovie Smith's cover-2.

"That was the plan, to pressure (Wallace) from the start," Smith said.

Wallace, playing for injured starter Matt Hasselbeck, used his speed to get away from some of the pressure. On one first-quarter blitz, the Seahawks caught the Bears with a screen pass, and Julius Jones scored on a 39-yard touchdown play after breaking Charles Tillman's tackle attempt.

"The first screen for a touchdown they caught us," Smith said. "So that can hurt you at times also. Whenever you have a new (quarterback) you want to make him make some tough throws."

Part of the logic behind all the blitzing was taking advantage of a Seattle offensive line missing three injured starters.

"They were banged up," Smith said. "I felt, going into the game, that we would be able to hold them down for the most part, but in the end our stars really played well - I'm taking about our captain, Lance Briggs, just playing his guts out on every play."

Briggs had a pass deflection, a quarterback hurry, a sack and 2 tackles for loss.

Roach had a tackle for loss, a pass deflection and also delivered the final blow to Seattle's attempt to come back.

He was defending running back Julius Jones on a fourth-and-2 incompletion with Seattle at the Bears' 29 and 26 seconds remaining.

"To come in and to win is big especially to win the way we did - we went in at halftime down and fought our way back - that's the way we've actually been playing a lot lately," Briggs said.

Whether they can continue doing it may depend on if any more linebackers go down. There was no word on the severity of Hillenmeyer's injury after the game.

"I got hit, it was third-and-short, and they ran a sweep. I actually made the play," Hillenmeyer said. "I thought I was fine. I got hit in the same spot two more times, right on it."

Briggs expects Tinoisamoa and Hillenmeyer to be back soon, but until then, "We've just got to continue to grind it out."