Championships can be won in October. Let’s just get that straight right now. In fact, baseball’s going to pick one this month. Oh, football championships, you mean? I don’t know, maybe Montana or Wyoming or Alaska has to finish high school playoffs in October. Why are you asking me this? Who’s trying to win a football championship in October?

Not the Bears. What they did last night wasn’t about getting to the Super Bowl. What they did last night was all about showing the world the road to that Super Bowl is Lake Shore Drive. Tommie, Brian, Rex and Bernard will be happy to help you park your car. Then set it on fire.

Any time the Bears play a team with a manatee for a head coach they want to win. Doesn’t matter if it’s the obnoxious Packers or the still somewhat anonymous Seahawks. But normally they lose. Mike Holmgren had beaten the Bears like a drum for 15 years. They finally beat him back. It doesn’t make up for it, but it was fun.

The best thing about the 37-6 thumping of Super Bowl runner-up Seattle was the manner in which the Bears offense went about its business. The long pass, once a rumor in these parts, is something to be tried again, and again and again. Not only that, but they actually catch a few. When the playoffs roll around, instead of a reliance on the myth of “Bear Weather” the team might actually just fall back on something a little more tangible. Like yard acquisition and scoring. What a novel idea?

How’d you like NBC’s stat that Muhsin Muhammad has caught 59 straight third down passes for first downs? You can tell he never played in an offense run by John Shoop.

I’m glad football is back on NBC. It marked the return of one of the best acronym fueled signs of all time. The always underrated Nobody Beats Chicago. Paired with the inevitable Chicago Bears Superbowl ones we’ll see this week against Buffalo, it takes you back to a simpler time. When men were men and Ken Margerum and Tim Wrightman were today’s Justin Gage and John Gilmore.

The fates nearly conspired against me last night. After a perfect day, I settled in to listen to John Madden babble his way through a Bears game, and I saw some lightning flash to the south of my house. I said, to no one in particular, “Great, maybe we can lose power for three hours.”

Ten minutes later, the power was out. I may live out in the boonies, but it’s not exactly like that old commercial with the two guys listening to the baseball game and the sound goes out and they look outside and see that the windmill isn’t moving. We have indoor plumbing and everything. So I listened to the first part of the game with my buddies Jeff and Tom as Seattle drove for a field goal. As I cursed my luck, the power came back on and the Bears were back in glorious 1080i high definition. Phew. Disaster averted.

Early in the game you thought Seattle might make some hay on defense blitzing like the Vikings had done a week before. On the first couple drives they were able to free guys up and pressure Rex. He threw a few balls away (really away, this time, not to defensive backs standing on the seven yard line), and made some plays. Desmond Clark showed that he didn’t need no stinking practice and had a couple nice catches on a scoring drive.

But then, it stopped. The Seahawks pass rush seemed to disappear. Rex had time, the running game perked to life and things were good.

Ricky Manning made a tremendous interception, where he left his man in the slot and snatched a pass intended for a different receiver. He’d have scored, too, if he had given Tommie Harris a little time to get between him and the great Matt Hasselbeck. Later, Manning played tip drill with himself and picked off another pass, one that he did return for a score, only to have it come back because Tank and Walleye were busy playing “who can clip harder” on the run back.

One of the fun things about watching the current generation of Bears is the effect that eight starter-level defensive linemen can have on an offense. Some games the Bears don’t get good pressure on the quarterback right away, but you know it will come. Like against Tampa Bay last year. Suddenly, the offensive line is tired and the defense is rotating in another set of linemen. But then there are nights like last night, when the rush shows up early and you just know the other team is in for a very loooooong game.

Hasselbeck wanted no part of the pass rush. To his credit he scrambled around and made a few plays, but mostly he was busy throwing the ball into the stands. He had a look on his face of confusion and disgust. Much like the one his sister-in-law has whenever Rosie O’Donnell starts talking.

You can tell the Bears have turned a corner in terms of our confidence in their offense.  Not that it should matter to them all that much how confident we are, but still, it’s kind of nice.  For the first time in…a long time, the inevitable graphics could be shown about how bad Bears’ quarterbacks have been since the days of Sid Luckman, and instead of cringing, you could just watch and actually believe that the Bears have finally found a guy.

When Rex rips off a throw, like the one he tossed to Bernard Berrian for a long touchdown in the third quarter, you realize that he’s got the kind of arm that the Bears have been looking for…forever.  While it’s probably good enough to get him in trouble once and a while, normally the ball goes exactly where it’s intended, and (gasp!) sometimes that intention is more than 10 yards down the field.  I know, I know, it’s taken me a while to grasp it, too.

I grew up on Notre Dame and Bears football, which means I hadn’t seen a competent offense much.  I believed the crap about you win with defense and running the ball.  But you know what?  Both teams now prove you can win it with defense and throwing the ball.  It’s more fun to watch, too.  Even if Notre Dame has yet to embrace the “defense” part of the equation.  Never mind.  Back to the Bears.

The Bears have, obviously, a gaggle of excellent defensive players.  Brian Urlacher is the reigning defensive player of the year.  Mike Brown is healthy and back to full studliness.  Lance Briggs is a tackle machine.  Nate Vasher is a top notch corner.  And you can go on and on.  But just how good is Tommie Freakin’ Harris right now?  The Bears needed a big play last week in the Metrodome, so he stole a handoff.  Last night, he disrupted a dozen plays (maybe more) all by himself.  We all know that Madden can be a little gushy, but none of what he said about Tommie seemed over the top.  Right now, he’s the best defensive player in the league.  It’s him, then Julius Peppers, then Shawn Merriman, then everybody else. His sack of Hasselbeck was unbelievable at real speed.  Hasselbeck started to drop back and suddenly there was Tommie, looking literally like he’d been shot out of a cannon closing on him.  The speed at which Tommie got to the quarterback was ludicrous.  (Make your own Spaceballs joke here.)

The Bears are 4-0.  A glimpse at their schedule would have you think 8-0 is a formality.  We’ll see.  Things never go according to plan.  But if you had to pick a football team to pin your hopes on, you’d pick this one.  Since most of us picked them shortly before birth, it just makes it all that much better.

Atlanta 32, Arizona 10
So this was the year it was going to be different for the Cardinals, eh?  The best part of this game came afterwards when Dennis Green announced that Matt Leinart was really, and for true, going to be the new starting quarterback.  He said, ” “That’s not an emotional decision.  I had a lot of time to think about it while we were losing very badly.”  Tremendous.

Buffalo 17, Minnesota 12
The fighting Dick Jaurons got to 2-2 on the season by mauling the Vikings’ offense.  Remember how we used to see stats about how poorly teams would play the week after playing the ’85 Bears?  They never won.  It was like the Bears pounded them so mercilessly that physically and emotionally, they were shot the next week, too.  So far, Bears’ opponents are 0-3 the week after the Bears humiliate them.  The Bills benefited in this game from Brad Johnson’s inability to throw the ball more than six yards in the air, and on an absurd touchdown catch by Peerless Price where he caught the ball while falling down, got up and scored while the Vikings looked for all the world like Mike Tice was still involved.

Dallas 45, Tennessee 10
The Titans have been awful for three years now, right?  Just terrible.  How long has it been since Jeff Fisher cut off his mullet?  I’m not saying.  I’m just saying.  I’m not sure if you heard about this, but Dallas has a guy named Terrell Owens who played with a broken finger and just four days after he “accidentally” overdosed on pain medication.  Oh, and I’m not sure if you saw this, but Titans’ defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth kicked the helmet off of Cowboys’ offensive lineman Andre Gurode’s head, then stomped on Andre’s face.  Oh, and I’m not sure if you knew this, but Vince Young started for Tennessee at quarterback.  Other than that, nothing newsworthy happened in this one.

Kansas City 41, San Francisco 0
Here’s what you need to know about how badly the Niners played.  Damon Huard played quarterback for the Chiefs.  Yes, that Damon Huard.  That Damon Huard posted a QB rating of 133.3.  Guh.

Indianapolis 31, NY Jets 28
You have to admire the way the Jets are playing for tubby first-year coach Eric Mangini.  They have a creative offense and they’re playing hard, if not particularly well, on defense.  As much as people want to hate Peyton Manning for all of the attention he gets, even they had to think, when the Jets ran a kickoff back for the lead with 2:20 to go that Peyton had way too much time to work with.  I did, however, enjoy the game’s final play, which included eight laterals.  One of the keys had to be having two quarterbacks involved.  Not only was Chad Pennington in the game, but former Mizzou QB Brad Smith was, too, and his cross field lateral early on in the final play set that thing up.  If I owned a football team, we’d run that play four times a game, just for the hell of it.  But since I work in marketing, I have a much more sensible career goal.  To become the president of the Cubs…

Carolina 21, New Orleans 18
This is an awful thing to admit, but I will anyway.  When I saw Steve Smith writhing around in pain after having his knee hit, I was kind of hoping ESPN, Fox, NBC and CBS would be doing inspirational “look who’s back 11 months from reconstructive knee surgery” stories on him next season.  Oh, well.  The Panthers are the only threat to total Bears’ NFC dominance.  You know that, right?

Baltimore 16, San Diego 13
I like Marty Schottenheimer.  I think he’s a fine coach, and I even like that hokey “There’s a gleam” speech he gave the Browns before the John Elway Drive game that NFL Films still shows.  But there has to be a reason that “this” keeps happening to Marty, right?  The Chargers pounded the vastly overrated Ravens for 58 minutes yesterday, and lost.  Not only that, but even when Marty made the right choice it took him too long.  He wasted a time out late in the game when his team lined up to punt of their end zone with a six point lead.  There’s only one time when you take a safety.  It’s when you are up six late in a game.  A touchdown is going to beat you anyway, so take the safety, don’t give the other team good field position and they still have to score a TD to beat you.  Marty made that decision.  But he had to call a timeout (one the Chargers could have used on their final drive) to make it.  By the way, the Ravens’ offense still sucks.  I don’t care if they’ve had two game-winning drives in two weeks or not.  They’re winning games like the 2001 Bears.  See how that lasts.

Houston 17, Miami 15
I just want to check.  Is Nick Saban still a genius?  Didn’t think so.

St. Louis 41, Detroit 34
I’ll give this to the 2006 Lions.  They still suck, but they lose in much more entertaining fashion than they used to.  This game was actually kind of fun to watch.  But wow, their defense is so bad, it’s almost comical.  No wait.  It’s not almost.  It is comical.

New England 38, Cincinnati 13
All that was missing from this ass kicking was a concussed Chad Johnson yelling, “Hugh!  Hugh!” for no reason.  How was Tom Brady’s body language yesterday?  Huh?  Hmm?

Cleveland 24, Oakland 21
DirecTV blacked this game out across the country.  Wait, they didn’t?  They should have.

Washington 36, Jacksonville 30
One of the most underrated moments in sports is when the home team scores a touchdown to win an overtime football game.  To do it the way Santana Moss did yesterday was even cooler.  Sixty-nine yards?  He split two defenders Matrix-style in mid air?  I don’t even like him, or the ‘Skins and still, that was cool.

I need to pass along this news. Tonight’s game between the Eagles and Packers will be broadcast on ESPN, but they’re giving it “Full Circle” treatment.  On ESPN2 you’ll be able to watch as Joe Theismann fellates Brett Farvuhruh when the Eagles have the ball, and on ESPNU, they’ll have cheese-cam, which will carry a live feed all night of six Packers fans trying to eat their weight in cheese curds.

Those curds don’t stand a chance.