Mike Mulligan

If a career falls in Lake Forest and no one around cares to hear it … Brian Urlacher's extraordinary career with the Bears ended with a resounding whimper Wednesday as an afternoon news release confirmed what long has been expected — that...

Bears general manager Phil Emery and new head coach Marc Trestman celebrate birthdays just a day apart from one another. That's one of the nifty — dare we say synergetic? — connections between the two men. Sadly, they weren't born in late...

There is an undercurrent of ambition to the firing of Lovie Smith. Winning isn't enough anymore in Chicago. Winning 10 games isn't enough, anyway. A new standard has been set. It may have taken nine years to figure it out, but Lovie Smith was deemed...

The franchise of Walter Payton, Gale Sayers and Red Grange could become the attack of Kahlil Bell, Armando Allen and maybe even Harvey Unga on Sunday at Detroit. Unga is on the practice squad and Bell has already been signed off the street and moved...

Phil Emery has spent so much of his NFL career in the shadows you can't help but wonder just what to expect from him now that his time in the spotlight draws near. The Bears general manager, sold as a relentless man, finally will begin to unveil his...

The Bears may appear to be going nowhere, but that doesn't mean Lovie Smith is headed anywhere. Smith effectively can seal another contract with a victory over the Packers on Sunday. Beating the Packers is important to Bears ownership, and Smith could...

The dark cloud settling over this Bears season grew even more ominous Tuesday with news that middle linebacker Brian Urlacher likely will miss three of the team's final four games with a Grade 2 hamstring strain. It's possible Urlacher could miss the...

The Bears have been running up a down escalator on offense for so long, they apparently can't help but feel they're on the verge of reaching the top. Maybe that explains the delusion of adequacy that prevented them from seriously upgrading the offensive...

The institutional failure of the Bears offense is even worse than most seem to realize. Not only has it failed to improve in the Jay Cutler era, the team has overpaid for that failure. An offseason investment of tens of millions of dollars has done...

There is nothing wrong with hoping Jay Cutler is held out of Monday night's game against the 49ers in San Francisco. Concussions are serious business and Cutler has a life to live beyond football. But what's wrong with hoping Cutler doesn't play...

It's understandable if the hype of a potential Super Bowl matchup one week, followed by a prospective NFC championship showdown the next, seems highly relevant midway through a season. But really, it's only hype. Getting to the real NFC championship...

It's a tribute to the skill of Jay Cutler — as opposed to, say, generations of previous Bears quarterbacks — that the interpretation of his leadership ability now includes fluency in body language, facial expression recognition and, of course,...