Looking to Sew It Up

They have the NFL’s best defense, but this isn’t how the Chicago Bears like to be put on the defensive.

Heading into today’s showdown against the visiting Carolina Panthers, the Bears are still trying to douse the embers of an extracurricular dispute between two of their players, which has led to, of all things, an FBI investigation.

An off-day scuffle earlier this month between center Olin Kreutz and tackle Fred Miller has spawned an investigation by the agency because the fight occurred after an annual outing at an FBI shooting range.

The agency is looking into whether alcohol was served at the post-outing barbecue, when the two players roughhoused. Kreutz broke Miller’s jaw with a punch, and Miller retaliated by hitting him in the head with a five-pound weight.

The players initially lied about the episode, saying Miller had suffered the broken jaw when he tripped and fell at home, and saying nothing about Kreutz’s head wound, which took 13 stitches to close.

Reporters later learned of the fight, and the Bears eventually came clean, giving a murky timeline for what they knew and when they knew it. Meanwhile, the players are putting up a united front.

“It’s nobody’s business but the people on this team,” linebacker Brian Urlacher told reporters this week.

The Bears (6-3), who have won five in a row, are in the midst of a surprisingly successful season. They have a two-game lead over Minnesota and Detroit in the NFC North, and their smothering defense has drawn comparisons to Chicago’s legendary 1985 defense.

Today’s game figures to be a monumental test. Carolina (7-2) is riding a six-game winning streak with three of those victories coming on the road. The Panthers have 10 take-aways in their last two games, and have averaged 30 points over their last eight road games.

Although quarterback Jake Delhomme and receiver Steve Smith have collected most of the eyebrow-raising statistics, the most notable strength of the Panthers is their defensive front, which has hurried and harassed opposing quarterbacks all season.

That’s largely the reason Miller -- wired jaw and all -- is back a week early. He’s afraid of letting his teammates down, so he’ll be there to line up against Pro Bowl defensive end Julius Peppers. For the second consecutive week, Kreutz will play with a stitched scalp.

Some observers say the Kreutz-Miller brouhaha has actually bonded the Bears rather than distracted them. Kreutz is among the most popular players in the locker room and is widely considered the team leader, even though he has a history of snapping and attacking teammates. At the very least, the situation seems bizarre.

“Every day someone is going to bring something up, but as far as we’re concerned, it’s done,” Kreutz said. “I’m not going to comment on the stories. People are going to keep bringing up stories, and some things are made up and some things are true. But we’re done with it, and people can keep going with it if they want to.”

The Panthers have had their share of off-the-field distractions in recent weeks too. Two weeks ago, the night before a game against the Buccaneers, a pair of Carolina’s TopCat cheerleaders were arrested after an incident in a Tampa nightclub. And last week, Panther cornerback Ken Lucas said the New York Jets had “quit” when they fell too far behind in their 30-3 loss to Carolina.

Amid the fallout from his remark, Lucas vowed to stop talking to reporters, and Carolina Coach John Fox felt compelled to call Jet Coach Herman Edwards and apologize.

“He actually told me what the player was trying to say,” Edwards told reporters in New York. “So I’ll leave it at that.... The player didn’t mean to say we quit. We quit throwing the ball. That’s what he meant.”

Whether it’s fisticuffs, a faux pas or a foot-in-the-mouth comment, these teams have endured them all this month.

Kreutz isn’t concerned. He said the Bears, for one, could bury the past.

“We’re all football players,” he said. “That’s what we do.”

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Better off

The Bears are on a five-game win streak and have recorded one of the largest single-season improvements in yards given up on defense since 1970:

*--* Team: Years First Yr. Next Yr. Diff. Falcons: 1976, ’77 328.7 225.9 102.8 Colts: 2004, ’05 370.6 271.3 99.3 Raiders: 1997, ’98 382.3 284.4 97.9 Steelers: 1989, ’90 346.8 257.2 89.6 Titans: 1999, 2000 327.8 238.3 89.5 Bears: 2004, ’05 336.9 253.7 83.2

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Source: STATS LLC