Behavior analysis: Bears already done as '07 contenders

Remember that hex the Super Bowl puts on losing teams the following seasons? It's alive, well and living in Halas Hall.

There you'll find the Chicago Bears, last year's Super Bowl losers and the first club to be DQ'd from this year's NFL championship game. Normally, you wait until November or December before telephoning the league coroner, but the Bears will spare you the trouble.

Alex Brown is the latest Bear looking to get out of the Windy City. (Getty Images)

It's not that the Bears don't have the talent to win. They do. It's not that they made dumb offseason moves, either, because they didn't. It has nothing to do with the draft or with Rex Grossman imitating the Venus De Milo or with a division that is barely visible in the rear-view mirror.

Nope, this has to do with the Bears' behavior. It stinks, and, yeah, I'm talking about Lance Briggs, Alex Brown and Tank Johnson.

Once they couldn't stop making plays, fixtures in the NFL's toughest defense. Now, they can't stop making news, with Brown stepping forward this week to announce he asked the Bears' permission to seek a trade.

Not because he's unhappy. Not because he becomes a free agent next year. Not because he doesn't like the coaching staff. But because "I just want to see what else is out there," Brown said on Sirius Radio.

Swell.

No, I don't get it, either. But what I am beginning to understand is that these Bad News Bears look more like a bunch of misfits than a football team, and that's not how you overcome the post-Super Bowl blues.

Lest you forget, teams that lose a Super Bowl one season typically go into the jar the next. Five of the past six, in fact, not only failed to reach the playoffs the following seasons; they couldn't win more than they lost.

Seattle broke that skid last year when it won its division with a 9-7 record before losing to Chicago in the playoffs.

So at least there's hope for the Bears, especially when you survey the field in the NFC North. But football is a team game, and if you don't behave as a team, you don't go far -- which Chicago seems intent on proving.

Earlier this week, I was talking to an AFC offensive coordinator when the conversation turned to the Bears, and it wasn't long before he started wondering how a club this dysfunctional survives the season. When I reminded him they play in a division with the Packers, Vikings and Lions, he stopped wondering.