Now, Bears at least dead men walking

They say a mind is a terrible thing to waste, but it would have been worse to waste Devin Hester's performance Sunday.

"He's putting us in position to take the game," wide receiver Bernard Berrian said.

Finally, dramatically, the Bears converted Hester's excellence into victory.

The Bears scrounged enough points -- including 17 in a nine-minute span of the fourth quarter and overtime -- to beat the Broncos 37-34 in Soldier Field.

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Afterward the Bears again declared that they remain in contention for a playoff berth despite a 5-6 record.

"I never really count us out," Berrian said, "until somebody tells us we're out of it."

Er, well, countless folks, including me, told you exactly that last week.

"Somebody official," Berrian said he meant. "Until then, we're still in the hunt."

Oh, somebody official.

Anyway, the Bears were dead last week and they're alive this week. What, you never heard of "Night of the Living Dead"?

The Bears indeed were dead then. Now they're dead men walking. If they beat the Giants next weekend, they'll be dead men jogging. If they win the next game, they'll be dead men running.

It's a process, you see.

As long as all the primary competition for the playoffs keep losing, the Bears will be alive. And kicking, too, if Hester keeps returning kicks for touchdowns the way he has during the first 30 games of his NFL career.

Two touchdowns against the Broncos -- one for 75 yards on a punt, the other for 88 yards on a kickoff -- give Hester 12 TD returns for his pro career. That includes one in the Super Bowl and another of a missed field goal that is in another category altogether.

"It's hard to explain how good he is," Bears quarterback Rex Grossman said.

For three-plus quarters, however, Hester was a Ferrari at a Kia car show.

The Bears dropped passes, committed holding penalties, called running plays on third-and-long, punted the ball into the end zone instead of inside the 20, endured boos from their fans #8230;

Perhaps most of all, Grossman reverted from the Mediocre Rex of a game ago to Bad Wrecks in this one.

But a funny thing happened to the Bears on the way to oblivion: They started making plays as if Hester were channeled into the rest of them.

Leave it to another special-teams play -- Peanut Tillman's block of a Denver punt -- to kick-start their failing heart.

Even after that, so many other squeaker plays had to squeak in the Bears' direction for them to survive another week.

Ultimately came Berrian's catch of a 3-yard pass in the end zone from Grossman with 28 seconds left in regulation.

Did Berrian come down in bounds? Did he have control of the ball? Was this really a tying touchdown?

The officials had to review the play. Some hearts really did stop, considering only the entire Bears' season depended on the outcome of the officials' review.

"I never doubted it," Berrian said. "Well, I did a little. Funny things happen. I've seen some funny things called."

Replays confirmed it was a touchdown. Robbie Gould's field goal won it in overtime. The Bears have another game that matters next week at home against the Giants.

Most comforting of all is that the Bears didn't waste another remarkable performance by Devin Hester.

mimrem@dailyherald.com