Victory quite a hit for Bears' defense

It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the Bears smacked the Cowboys around in their own home Sunday, as Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, Chris Harris and Charles Tillman all dished out some smackdown hits.

They were the kind of shots that any coach loves to see, and they had Bears coach Lovie Smith still talking about them a day after the 27-20 victory.

"There were more than a few," Smith said. "We had a lot of big hits. Some you saw right then, others maybe you didn't."

It's for sure that future Bears opponents will see them on film and take note, as some of the Cowboys' receivers seemed to do during the course of the game.

"Once you get that reputation, and during the course of a game once you see a lick, a big hit like that early on, it has to be on receivers' minds as they're coming across the middle trying to make catches," Smith said.

"A lot of time we're in zone coverage. The good part about zone coverage is you have seven guys seeing the quarterback who can break and get a shot."

Smith said that just like good hitting in baseball, hard hitting in football can be contagious.

"We have guys that can hit with impact," he said. "We talk a lot about the Monsters of the Midway. That's a physical brand of football."

Harris couldn't say for sure if the big hits caused the drops later on, but the message is clear.

"When guys come across the middle, we just want to make sure that they know they're going to get hit," Harris said. "We're going to try to punish you for catching the ball.

"That's kind of the mentality we want to have. That's one thing that coach Rod Marinelli is kind of bringing back here - that whole Monsters of the Midway thing. We're buying into it."