Normally the start of the NFL season is an exciting time for a sports fanatic such as myself. This season however, I struggled with getting overly excited about the upcoming season.

Part was due to the fact that my Chicago Cubs sport the best record in the National League and are destined to make a strong playoff push that will hopefully end in late October and crowned World Series Champions, but all that is for another column later on in the fall. The other reason, is my football team, the Chicago Bears have a starting quarterback that had not made a meaningful start in nearly three seasons, in the form of Kyle Orton.

I will go ahead and make the statement that I willingly open the flood gates to open with the position I stand on the Bears quarterback. I have been and will remain one of the biggest supporters for Rex Grossman. I still feel that he is the best option at quarterback on the roster, which is not saying a whole lot.

With that statement, I had thoughts of skipping last Sunday night's opener against the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts entered the game as nearly two touchdown favorites, and with all the celebration of playing the first regular season game in their new $720 million stadium, I figured the spread was a slap in the face to the 2007 World Champs.

Being the diehard fan that I am, I managed to turn the TV on right before half-time, as I was on the way back from Kokomo for the kickoff, and was shocked for lack of a better term to see the Bears with the lead heading into the locker room at intermission.

As the game wore on, I kept waiting for the Colts to step up their game to a level the Bears would not be able to match, and bring all the Bears fans back down to reality. None of which happened, and gave me a new sense of excitement for this season. I still am not comfortable enough to go on record and state that I feel the Bears are Super Bowl contenders once again, but we do play in the NFC and anything can happen.

Monday morning I picked up the Indianapolis Star to read about the game since I can not find a Chicago Tribune close by. So if any of you know where I can find one, please feel free to let me know. I quickly found out the Star failed to report on the game for Monday's edition due to the game not being over with before publication deadline.

Are you serious? You mean to tell me, your local professional football team plays the first regular season game in their brand new stadium and against a team that is three hours away, and you can not extend deadline an extra hour? Now in this profession, I know all about deadlines and how they work, and there are times that we have stretch our deadlines out, namely on Friday nights for football games, HIGH SCHOOL football games, I might add. Now, what if the Colts would have been thrashing the Bears, like just about every critic outside of Chicago thought? Would there have been game coverage then?

Back to the game itself now. I am still not sold on "Kyle Orton is our starting quarterback" -- famous words of Bears head coach Lovie Smith. He did do a good job of managing the game by not turning the ball over. But let's face it, the defense of the Bears is what decided this game, and also a revamped running attack by the Bears, mainly in the force of rookie Matt Forte.

Now back to Grossman for a minute. I will make the brash statement that if Forte, or really any other running back except Cedric Benson, is in the starting backfield last season along with Grossman, Orton would still be on the bench this season, or maybe even in a different city as a second or third string quarterback. The Bears simply had no running game last season, and Grossman was doomed from the start. Yes, he is a little wild and likes to sling the ball around, but look at Brett Farve.

Ok I promise not to mention Grossman anymore in this column. Back to the game. After reading some articles and fans comments from the game in numerous online publications and papers, the popular evaluation of the game was "Manning was not ready", "Manning just did not look like himself", "Dallas Clark left the game", "Joseph Addai left in the fourth quarter,". Excuses, excuses, excuses. Typical. How about trying this evaluation on for size -- the Bears had a game plan, executed the game plan, and simply walked into the Colts brand new stadium and gave them an ole fashion whooping. Plain and simple.

At least for one week, the Chicago Bears looked like a typical Bears team -- smashmouth football -- aggressive defense and strong running game and force the opposing team into doing things they are not comfortable with. Sir Peyton dropped back for 49 passes, not a good formula for the Colts and winning.

And for at least one week, this Bears fan has some reason to believe, this season may hold some promise after all.

Travis David is a sports writer for the Greene County Daily World and can be reached at tdavid@gcdailyworld.com or 812-847-4487 ext. 20.