Impressive win, but Bears left some things on tape
Q. Was this as well as the Bears have played all season?
A. There were some things in the fourth quarter that maybe you scratch your head about, but boy, for three quarters I think they played as good as they could have played.
Q. What did you think of the way Jay Cutler performed in his first playoff game?
A. It was impressive but there's a lot of teaching opportunities off the tape as well.
You win a game and you throw for two touchdowns and you run for a pair and you want to say, ‘Hey, that's the greatest game ever,' but he threw into coverage a couple of times. He threw what should have been a pick on the goal line.
There's going to be some teaching stuff off this tape, but they're going to spend very little time looking at that tape; they're going to spend a majority of their time getting ready for Green Bay.
Q. You talked about a fast start being a key Sunday and that's just what the Bears delivered.
A. The fast start was key. I think it reminded the Seahawks that this is a fight you're probably not going to be in for very long. It was important to get off to that quick start.
Q. Can you explain why Matt Forte was throwing the ball out of the Wildcat formation?
A. I kind of understand where they're coming from. They had not thrown the football out of that formation this year so maybe they wanted to show that ‘Hey, we can throw the ball out of this,' so as a defense you have to prepare for it.
Q. Do you see this as a continuing improvement process for the Bears?
A. The theme all year for this team is that it's gotten better every week. With the exception of the Patriots game, this has been a steady progression forward. Mike Tice said at the beginning of the year that the Bears aren't going to be a finished product in Week 1, that they hope ton be turning the corner by the bye week.
He just nailed it.
He was speaking specifically about the offensive line but he might as well have been speaking about the whole team.
Q. When you think about what lies ahead Sunday, what's going through your head?
A. Well, you've got a very hot team in the Green Bay Packers. That's what concerned me about Seattle — they had that momentum and that confidence going.
This is a supremely confident team in Green Bay. They've got an excellent defensive coordinator (Dom Capers), they have an excellent offensive mind in Mike McCarthy calling the plays, and they have a quarterback who's at the top of his game.
I think the Bears have a little bit more this time around.
When they played them at Green Bay they tried some things and I don't know if that wasn't setting some things up for a chance that they might play them again. I don't know. If they did, that was genius.
If you had told me at the beginning of the year that the Bears and Packers were going to play in the NFC title game at Soldier Field I would have said you're crazy ... but here it is.
• Jim Schwantz, a former linebacker for the Bears, serves as Palatine's mayor. His analysis can be heard on WBBM 780-AM during the pregame and postgame shows.