Chicago Herald-American

Kyle Orton's ankle injury bears watching — not so much because of how it impacts the Broncos, but how it might reflect on the Bears and their spotty record with injured players. When Orton suffered a sprained ankle with the Bears last year, it fit an all-too-familiar pattern: he was never the same.
 
Now it's the Broncos' turn. Orton suffered a sprained ankle Sunday on a scramble in the final minute of the first half against the Redskins — after throwing touchdown passes of 40 and 75 yards to Brandon Marshall —  and did not play in the second half. It was an almost identical situation as last Nov. 2, when he suffered a sprained ankle on a scramble in the final minute of the second quarter against the Lions at Soldier Field.
 
When he was injured with the Bears, initial reports ranged from Orton missing a month with the dreaded high ankle sprain to him being able to play the following Sunday against the Tennessee Titans. It turned out that Orton missed that game, but returned the following week — he was clearly hampered in a 37-3 loss to the Packers.
 
Only it never got much better. Orton had a 90.8 passer rating at the time of the injury. His rating after the injury was 70.3, with the Bears going 4-3 and falling one-game short of the playoffs.
 
It wasn't until after the season that Orton revealed the injury was more severe than was being reported and he was not 100 percent the rest of the season. Either the Bears didn't realize how injured their quarterback was or just preferred a gimpy Orton to a healthy Rex Grossman. Either way, not a good thing for the Bears.
 
Of course, it's hard to tell if this year's ankle injury is as severe as last year's — Orton is questionable for the Broncos' game Sunday against San Diego. It'll be worth keeping an eye on to see if the Broncos have any better luck managing it than the Bears did a year ago.
 
And now, 10 observations from Week 10:
 
1. Speaking of former Bears getting injured ... Dallas Cowboys tackle Marc Colombo's rehabilitation from a broken leg against the Packers on Sunday might be worth keeping an eye on as well. Colombo suffered the injury almost seven years to the day he suffered a broken left kneecap with the Bears — and is out for the year, ending a streak of 59 consecutive starts.
 
When he was a Bears rookie, Colombo had played 10 games and started five before suffering the kneecap injury and never really came back. He developed nerve damage, had a second surgery and only made two more starts for the Bears over the next three years before the Bears cut him in 2005 because they just couldn't get him healthy. Two months later he was playing special teams for the Cowboys and ended up starting in 2006.
 
2. It was a tough day for former Bears on Sunday. The Bengals' Cedric Benson suffered a hip injury in the first half of the Bengals' victory over the Steelers. Benson's injury reportedly is not as serious as initially believed — he might play Sunday against the Raiders.
 
Hopefully the Bengals will have better luck with Benson injuries than the Bears did. As a Bears rookie in 2005, Benson was just starting to come around (29 carries, 164 yards vs. the Lions, Saints and 49ers) when he suffered a sprained MCL and missed six games.  After a slow start in 2006, he averaged 4.9 yards per carry in the final seven games while splitting time with Thomas Jones, but suffered a sprained knee in the Super Bowl.
 
He struggled off of that injury in 2007 (3.0 yards per carry) but was just starting to come around again (19 carries, 136 yards vs. the Seahawks and Broncos) when he suffered a broken left leg after a 21-yard run against the Broncos and missed the final five games of the season. He was cut in 2008 and wound up with the Bengals, where he was second in the NFL in rushing yards going into Sunday's game.
 
3. An interesting tidbit from the autopsies on Jay Cutler's five interceptions against the 49ers: on the first one, the Bears apparently were trying to convince the 49ers they were going to run the ball on a goal-line play. So they used two tight ends — neither of whom was starting tight end Greg Olsen. Here's how goofy the Bears' offense is: in order not to tip their hand that they were running a passing play, they had to keep their best pass-catching tight end on the bench — because everybody knows Olsen is not in there to block. So when they needed a tight end to get open, Olsen was on the bench instead of on the field. That's right up there with Vinny Del Negro keeping Derrick Rose on the bench in crunch-time in the fourth quarter of Bulls games last year.
 
4. One of the most overlooked plays of the 49ers game was Roberto Garza's ineligible-receiver-downfield penalty on Jay Cutler's 40-yard pass play to Earl Bennett to the 49ers 16 late in the third quarter, with the 49ers leading 7-6. With a unnecessary roughness penalty on Tarell Brown tacked on, the Bears would have had a first-and-goal at the 49ers 8. Instead they had a first-and-10 at the 49ers 41 -- and would have been at their own 39 if not for the penalty on Brown. Why was Garza sprinting downfield on a pass play? A miscommunication or just a botched play?
 
5. Giving Credit Where It's Due Dept.: One hallmark of the Bears' inefficiency on offense over the years has been their inability to run a decent screen play to their running backs. But they ran two of them to perfection against the 49ers: a 37-yard play to Matt Forte in the second quarter and a 31-yard gain in the third quarter -- screen plays so well executed that Joe Montana and Roger Craig would be proud to call their own. Forte ended up with eight catches for 120 yards.

6. Bears fans watching Pitt take a 27-9 lead on Notre Dame with 12:44 left in the game probably knew what was coming next with Dave Wannstedt on the Pitt sideline. Sure enough, Notre Dame scored two touchdowns in a 1:54 span to get within 27-22 with plenty of time — 7:16 — left. The Pitt quarterback's fumble on third-and-one to force a punt that gave Notre Dame the ball with 3:39 only seemed to seal Wanny's fate. But maybe his luck is changing. Notre Dame had a crucial penalty and Pitt forced a Notre Dame fumble that Pitt recovered to clinch the game. Good for Dave Wannstedt. His team is 9-1 and ranked No. 8 in the AP poll and No. 8 in the BCS standings.
 
7. The Arizona Cardinals dealt the Bears one of the bigger insults of this dissappointing season whey they came in as the 32nd-ranked rushing team in the NFL and rushed for 182 yards against the Bears on Nov. 8 (5.9 per rush). But at least the Cardinals followed it up with another solid — though not quite as spectacular — effort against the Seahawks: 122 yards on 26 carries for running backs Beanie Wells (16-85, 2 TDs) and Tim Hightower (10-37). The Seahawks came into that game ranked 11th in the NFL against the run (103 yards per game).
 
8. Ex-Bear Player of the Week: Mike Brown hasn't lost his knack for being at the right place at the right time. Brown picked off two passes in the fourth quarter — both on deflections — as the Kansas City Chiefs held off the Raiders to win 16-10. Brown's second interception came at the Chiefs 10-yard-line with 30 seconds left in the game. Brown now has 19 career interceptions in 10 NFL seasons, with four touchdowns.
 
9. "A tough, thick-framed, hard-working, limited athlete who is most functional in short areas. Beekman could struggle to handle the quickness of the pro game. Has the mental makeup to overcome his athletic limitations and might wind up at center."
 
That was the scouting report from Pro Football Weekly on Josh Beekman coming out of Boston College in 2007. With Olin Kreutz struggling with shotgun snaps, the Bears might help themselves by playing Beekman at center and moving Kreutz to guard. Beekman was a backup center at BC and started three games there as a senior in 2006. I don't know how difficult the transition from center to guard is, but I'll bet the still-athletic Kreutz can handle it. He'd be better than Frank Omiyale.

10. Bill Belichick is getting lambasted for his decision to go for the first down on fourth-and-2 at his own 28 against the Colts on Sunday night. But it was more of a calculated risk that failed than the overtly boneheaded move it's being portrayed as in the national media. And let's face it: a lot of people just can't wait to take their shots at Belichick. I'm not a fan, either. But I respect the reasoning behind the move. He had a chance to end the game right there and took it. I think a lot of NFL coaches would love to do the same thing, and only wish they had the equity of three Super Bowl victories to give it a shot.