"Even when Julius Peppers isn't making a big impact, his redeeming value to the Bears is that he's still Julius Peppers — as long as he's on the field, an offense has to account for the fact that he could erupt at any time.

A quiet Peppers or an injured Peppers is better than no Peppers, which the Bears found out the hard way on Monday night. When Peppers left the game against the Detroit Lions for one play after he sprained his knee, Matt Stafford, dropping seven steps out of a shotgun snap, stepped up and threw a 73-yard touchdown pass to Calvin Johnson.

Now the Bears face the possibility of playing without Peppers for an entire game. Coach Lovie Smith purposefully opened his post-practice news conference Friday with the bad news that quickly reverberated all the way up to Minneapolis: ''We've downgraded Julius Peppers to doubtful. He wasn't able to do anything today. Still hopeful. When a guy doesn't practice at all during the week, we're not too optimistic. But we'll see.''"