Bear Down: Remembering the best moments from Brian Urlacher's career

To celebrate the Hall-of-Fame career of an all-time Bears great, we take a look back at the top five moments in Brian Urlacher's career — with four honorable mentions — for No. 54:

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Mike Santiago submits Terry House in Hoosier Fight Club 15 main event

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Elkins gets the UFC finish he was looking for

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Close races: Matt Erickson's picks for the Academy Award winners

Everyone knows about flip-flopping when it comes to politics, but this is taking it to another level.

Oscar Countdown: 1 Days

Best Picture — Argo: What happened with "Argo" has been absolutely fascinating to watch. It started out as the frontrunner when it was released in October. But then it cooled down and "Lincoln" started to steal the heat. When Ben Affleck wasn't nominated for Best Director, its hopes really w…

Oscar Countdown: 2 Days

Best Picture — Lincoln: With 12 nominations, "Lincoln" was at one time leading the pack for Best Picture. But now it appears to have taken a backseat to "Argo. Still, Steven Spielberg's brilliant biopic of the 16th president will win some big ones. Spielberg looks like a lock for Best Direct…

Oscar Countdown: 3 Days

Best Picture — Silver Linings Playbook: If I have an emotional favorite this year that I'd love to see win Best Picture, "Silver Linings Playbook" is it. It pulled off a rarity with nominations for Picture, Director, Screenplay and all four acting categories. Heck, just to get nods in the "B…

Oscar Countdown: 4 Days

Best Picture — Les Miserables: Make no mistake, the film adaptation of "Les Miserables" is not for everyone. Fans of the 1862 Victor Hugo novel and eventual Broadway smash-hit musical will consider it a must see, of course. But if you're not into musicals, good luck getting into this. The ca…

Oscar Countdown: 5 Days

Best Picture — Life of Pi: A monumental undertaking, "Life of Pi" may fall short in the Best Picture category. But that shouldn't diminish the importance of it as a film, and I believe as time marches on, it one day will be considered a masterpiece of modern filmmaking. With 11 nominations, …

Oscar Countdown: 6 Days

Best Picture — Zero Dark Thirty: "Zero Dark Thirty" fell back in the pack not long after it was released, joining "Argo" and "Lincoln" as a film with an up and down roller coaster ride when it comes to its chances of winning Best Picture. Before it had its wide release, this story of the cap…

Oscar Countdown: 7 Days

Best Picture — Django Unchained: When it comes to response from real, live moviegoers, no Best Picture nominee this year beat out "Django Unchained," Quentin Tarantino's uber-violent and ultra-controversial nod to the spaghetti westerns of old. It's a middle-of-the-pack longshot to win Best …

Oscar Countdown: 8 Days

Best Picture — Beasts of the Southern Wild: "Beasts of the Southern Wild" is a remarkable bit of out-of-nowhere filmmaking that deserves to be seen, especially for Quvenzhane Wallis, 5 years old when she was cast in the role of Hushpuppy. The movie already is out on DVD and Blu-Ray, so you h…

Oscar Countdown: 9 Days

Best Picture - Amour: Over the next nine days, we'll look at the nine films up for Best Picture this year. Today, we start with "Amour." To be certain, this little Austrian love story is a longshot to win Best Picture, with oddsmakers setting the line around 100 to 1. But with nominations in…

Oscar Countdown: 10 Days

Best Director: The crazy thing about Best Director this year is not who was nominated. It's who wasn't. Ben Affleck ("Argo"), Kathryn Bigelow ("Zero Dark Thirty") and Quentin Tarantino ("Django Unchained") all were snubbed. And really, that means Steven Spielberg can start walking to the sta…

Oscar Countdown: 11 Days

Best Actor: The odds on Daniel Day-Lewis winning in the title role of "Lincoln" currently are 1-to-50. That means to win $1, you have to bet $50 on him. In other words – he's an absolutely massive favorite. And deservedly so. He's really never not amazing, and the fact this will be "only" hi…

Oscar Countdown: 12 Days

Best Actress: Jennifer Lawrence already was one of the hottest commodities in Hollywood before "Silver Linings Playbook" came out thanks to her Oscar-nominated breakout in "Winter's Bone" and her mega-roll in "The Hunger Games." Then "SLP" hit – and she was amazing. She soared to the front o…

Oscar Countdown: 13 Days

Best Supporting Actor: This may be the most impressive category this year considering the fact that all five nominees have already won Oscars. That also makes it exceedingly hard to predict. Tommy Lee Jones was long thought to be the frontrunner for "Lincoln," and that still is likely the ca…

Oscar Countdown: 14 Days

Oscar Countdown: 15 Days

Best Original Screenplay: The Original Screenplay gets interesting. Quentin Tarantino is always a threat, and "Django Unchained" is such a hot-button film that it will get plenty of votes. And Tarantino's snub for Director is going to produce some sympathy, as well. Mark Boal's "Zero Dark Th…

Oscar Countdown: 16 Days

Best Animated Feature: After a nice four-year run for Disney-Pixar with "Ratatouille," "Wall-E," "Up" and "Toy Story 3," the streak was snapped last year by "Rango" – thanks to no Disney nominees. This year, "Brave" is the Disney-Pixar entry, but Disney also has "Wreck-It Ralph" and Tim Burt…

Oscar Countdown: 17 Days

Best Foreign Film: At this point, a win for anything but "Amour" would be the biggest upset at this year's awards. The film, Austria's official nomination, is up for four other awards – Picture, Director and Original Screenplay (Michael Haneke) and Actress (Emmanuelle Riva). At 85, Riva actu…

Oscar Countdown: 18 Days

Original Song:

Oscar Countdown: 19 Days

Editing: This is such a fun category because nearly 70 percent of the time, whatever film we hear called out early in the night in the Film Editing category, we hear again at the end of the night as the Best Picture winner. So "Argo," "Lincoln" and "Zero Dark Thirty" probably are your best o…

Oscar Countdown: 20 Days

Cinematography: Talk about a shame – Roger Deakins is the Susan Lucci of cinematography. Lucci, of course, infamously had 18 Emmy nominations before finally winning one. Deakins has 10 nominations, and nary an Oscar yet. He was even nominated twice in one year. This year, it's "Skyfall" that…

Oscar Countdown: 21 Days

Production Design: do a period piece, and do it well, and you'll usually wind up nominated here. So "Anna Karenina," "Lincoln" and "Les Mis" should be of no surprise. But this category often gives out awards to over-the-top sets – "Hugo" last year, "Alice in Wonderland" the year before that,…

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Oscar Countdown: 22 Days

Makeup and Costume: One of several category clarifications and name-changes this year, Best Makeup now adds Hairstyling to the official category name. With just three nominees, it seems to be between "The Hobbit" and "Les Mis," which turned pretty people into grungy masterpieces. But "Hobbit…

Oscar Countdown: 23 Days

Sound and Visual Effects: Without a little research, it can be hard to know the difference between Sound Editing and Sound Mixing. Think of it this way: Sound Editing is the creation of sounds for the movie. Sound Mixing is how the picture sounds as a whole. For that reason, a musical like "…

Oscar Countdown: 24 Days

Shorts and Documentaries: Typically the hardest categories to predict because so few of us regular people get to see them, the shorts – Documentary Short Subject, Live Action Short Subject – and Documentary Feature often feature some of the best work of the year. "5 Broken Cameras" is a touc…

Big Easy food for the Big Game

If there are two things that go together better than football and food, it's New Orleans and food.

NFL INSIDER: Favorites looking good for trips to New Orleans

As I sat in Oklahoma City for my day job watching people punch and kick and twist each others' limbs inside a cage, I kept an eye on last Saturday's games.