FanHouse Chicago Bears

Antoine Winfield played it safe last week sitting out a fourth straight game with his foot injury. He wasn't needed as a nearly perfect Brett Favre led the Vikings to an easy win over the Seahawks.'

Well it's more accurate to say that the Vikings decided for Winfield that he was going to sit that one out, something that Winfield told the Star-Tribune that in hindsight was a wise choice. But with the division rival Bears on the schedule this week, Winfield is ready to promise he'll be back in action this Sunday.

With the Chicago Bears struggling through a season which began with such lofty expectations, many names are bound to be connected to the Bears. Most notably, people will start speculating about head coaches, defensive coordinators (to take pressure off Lovie Smith) and offensive coordinators who could replace the maligned Ron Turner.

A name that would make sense is Mike Martz -- who was head coach when Smith was the defensive coordinator in St. Louis for three seasons earlier this decade. Martz presently works as an analyst for the NFL Network, but -- according to the Chicago Sun-Times -- he would welcome being hired as the Bears' offensive coordinator.

A week after tossing five interceptions in a 10-6 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Jay Cutler and the Chicago Bears return home to take on Donovan McNabb and the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night. As always, the FanHouse live chat will be rolling along, so please stop in and join us as we discuss all of the action.

Party begins at 8:15 PM ET.

As the Chicago Bears look to break a skid which has found them losing four of their last five games, they are apparently not in a very outgoing mood. As NBC gears up for Sunday Night football this week -- which pits the Bears against the Philadelphia Eagles -- they requested "access" to Bears general manager Jerry Angelo, head coach Lovie Smith and quarterback Jay Cutler. The Bears declined.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the reason a Bears spokesman gave for the denial is that the team needs to focus on winning games instead of talking to the media.

If you've ever seen the Pittsburgh Steelers play a road game, it's not uncommon to see thousands of fans in black and gold in the stands (much to the chagrin of the local fans/writers), while you can probably find a "black-and-gold-bar" in just about every major city in the United States.

Needless to say, if the Steelers are playing, there's going to be a lot of fans with Pittsburgh-ties in the area. Their Week 2 game in Chicago, a 17-14, loss was no different, and one fan, 46-year-old Zack Eddinger, claims he was poisoned (and blinded) in a Chicago bar after an altercation with a group of Bears fans.

Although ESPN draft expert Mel Kiper and NFL Network draft expert Mike Mayock always say nice, pleasant, cordial things about each other, they have an undeniable rivalry. And Kiper took a bit of a swipe at Mayock on Friday morning.

As with any polarizing figure, Jay Cutler brings about strong emotions on both sides of the fence. Many people believe he's the worst thing that ever happened to professional quarterbacking, someone who sucks so bad he'll be in the UFL in a few years. Others believe his golden arm will carry him to the Hall of Fame eventually and every mistake he's ever made has been someone else's fault.

As with most extreme arguments, the best answer lies exactly in the middle. Cutler has tons of talent, but he has very large strides to make before he can be considered the franchise quarterback many believe him to be.

Every week FanHouse looks at some aspect of NFL line play for the weekly Between The Lines feature.

Because of bye weeks, most teams are halfway through their season even as we're getting ready to watch Week 10. The halfway point seems like as good a time as any to roll out complete sacks allowed stats.

These stats were culled by watching each and every sack that has occurred in the NFL this season (with the exception of a couple of minutes of a Redskins-Chiefs game that was lost because of a broadcasting problem). In going back and watching every sack, I timed the time from the snap to the initial hit on the quarterback (then rewound it and timed it a couple of more times to confirm the time) and tried to assign blame to the person responsible for giving up the sack.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Mike Singletary didn't exactly hand it to his old team. That didn't matter - Jay Cutler handed the desperate San Francisco 49ers a much-needed win.

Frank Gore ran for 104 yards and a touchdown, Cutler threw a career-high five interceptions with his last coming in the end zone on the game's final play and San Francisco snapped a four-game losing streak by beating the Chicago Bears 10-6 on Thursday night.

Get. Excited. The NFL's Thursday night schedule is back and, well maybe not better than ever -- the Week 10 combatants, Chicago and San Francisco, have lost seven of eight combined -- but it's certainly back.

Both teams could desperately use this one. The Bears (4-4) find themselves three games back of the NFC North-leading Vikings, and quite frankly, have been extremely mediocre lately. Chicago lost at home to Arizona last week, 41-21, and it's only win since a Week 5 bye came against Cleveland. San Francisco, meanwhile, has fallen hard since an impressive 3-1, capped by a home loss to Tennessee last Sunday. Despite winning in Arizona earlier this season, the 49ers are two games back of the Cardinals in the NFC West.

Thursday night's game kicks at 8:20 PM ET, and we'll be here just prior to that -- 8:15 -- for our live chat. Join us, won't you?