Surprising Bears shoot for seventh straight win

~ Chicago and Tampa Bay to match defenses today.

TAMPA, Fla. -- Lovie Smith gracefully shrugged off another question about the 1985 Chicago Bears.

The coach of the current Bears team that ranks first in the NFL in defense and is riding a six-game winning streak believes it's useless to discuss similarities between his NFC North leaders and Chicago's only Super Bowl champion.

"To make comparisons during the season, I just don't know what you get from them," Smith said. "After the season is over, and you look at what we've done, if what we've done warrants being compared then, that's great."

The 1985 Bears lost one game on the way to winning Chicago's last NFL title. This year's team lost three of its first four before going on the winning streak that's carried it to the top of the division.

The defense sacked Jake Delhomme eight times and forced two turnovers in last week's 13-3 domination of Carolina. A victory today against Tampa Bay (7-3) would give the Bears (7-3) their first seven-game winning streak since the season after winning the Super Bowl.

Tampa Bay beat Washington and Atlanta the past two weeks despite not playing well on defense.

After leading the league in fewest yards allowed for much of the first half of the season, the Bucs enter today ranked third -- two spots behind Chicago -- and have yielded 96 points in their last three games.

The Bears have given up 110 all season.

"They're still a great defense," Chicago defensive end Adewale Ogunleye said of the Bucs.

"They've gone against some decent offenses the last couple of weeks who have put up some points, but they still play solid football. It's not where you are in the middle of the year, it's where you end up."

The Bears are fourth in the league with 31 sacks and second with 16 interceptions.

Tampa Bay linebacker Derek Brooks isn't surprised by the Bears' success in their second year under Smith, who spent five seasons as Tampa Bay's linebackers coach under former coach Tony Dungy from 1996-2000.

Chicago went 5-11 in 2004.

"It kind of reminds me of Coach Dungy's first year. We finally hit that point where we won five out of the last six, and then the next year things turned around for us because Coach Dungy has his way or doing things and he didn't change. Now you see some of the same things happening in Chicago," Brooks said.

"Right now, they've got the No. 1 defense. They've earned that right and they're ranked where they deserve to be ranked. ... If we want to do something about it, we show up on Sunday and we do something about it."