For Moore, playing big all that really matters

Much is made of D.J. Moore's lack of size. He's listed at 5-feet-9 and 183 pounds, which seems generous. But to him, size is not as issue.

"It ain't really about size because somebody's always bigger than somebody else, and somebody's always stronger than somebody else," he said. "Somebody's always jumping higher or doing something.

"Everybody has a part of them that you say, 'Oh, he can't play.' So I don't really pay it any mind. I played football in one of the best college conferences (SEC). Now we play we play Green Bay and Minnesota. So undersized (or not), just tackle. Technique overrides everything."

Moore had a better chance of getting splinters from the bench last year than hurt in a game. He said it was important to maintain his ultrahigh level of confidence, which he did by visualizing how he would play.

"If you don't visualize it the night before the game, you don't know what you're going to do," he said. "If I was a reporter, I'd be thinking about a question I'm going to ask the night before."

But did he ever visualize 2 interceptions in the same game?

"No, maybe one," he said with a big smile. "You don't want to go overboard."

In Sunday's postgame locker room, Moore was mistakenly given credit for forcing a fourth-quarter fumble that Charles Tillman punched out of Roy Williams' grasp.

"That was Charles," Moore said. "He's around the ball, and he's punching everything out. I felt like he punched out one of my kidneys in practice once."

Making a statement: The old "us against the world" theme is one of the most overused in sports, but in the Bears' case it actually works, since they entered the season with low expectations from outsiders.

"We haven't had many positive things said about many of us," tight end Greg Olsen said. "That's the nature of the game we play, (but) we don't let anyone else define what we're able to do. If we win enough games, that will speak for itself."

The underdog role is one that most teams welcome, and the Bears are no different.

"Nobody is picking us to win," safety Chris Harris said. "We like it like that. That's fine with us because in the locker room we're all we have anyway. We don't let outside forces, outside voices dictate how we play."

Room for improvement: Lost amid the big win at Dallas were a couple of statistical failings that didn't escape coach Lovie Smith's scrutiny.

"Third downs, of course, on both sides, both offensively and defensively, we weren't as good as we need to be," Smith said. "That will be a definite area for us to concentrate on this week."

The Bears were a horrendous 1-for-11, a 9 percent conversion rate. On defense, they allowed the Cowboys to convert 6 of 13 opportunities (46 percent).

The NFL average last year on third-down conversions was 38.6 percent. The Bears were 25th at 37.3 percent. Defensively they were 24th, allowing a 41.2 percent success rate.

The final word: Defensive tackle Tommie Harris took Sunday's impressive victory in stride.

"We expected to win," he said. "We expected to come in here and do this."

The Bears opened as 9-point underdogs, but Harris said there was no time to savor the upset.

"We're getting ready for Green Bay," said Harris, who wasn't satisfied. "We played physical from the start of it, but we have to get better. We have to move on, take this win in stride and get ready for the next opponent."