Living down to its billing, 49ers-Bears game bowls over no one.(Chicago Tribune)

Byline: Rick Morrissey

CHICAGO _ I don't know about you, but all I could think of between spine tingles was, "I'll be able to say I was there for Craig Krenzel-Ken Dorsey I."

If we had wanted to see Ohio State-Miami, we would have gotten the athletic directors together and seen if we could have scheduled a home-and-home starting in 2009. This is why Saturdays were invented.

But this was Sunday, and this was Soldier Field, and through some unfortunate circumstances involving injuries and its own bizarre programming choices, ESPN got itself a national TV game involving two teams still harboring hopes for a Humanitarian Bowl bid.

There is no great moral to this story, other than that the Bears and the 49ers deserve each other and that even though we deserve neither, we watch with glazed eyes, unable to look away. It was Chicago 23, San Francisco 13 and, yes, a win is a win. But ugly doesn't begin to describe this.

Dorsey (Miami, Class of 2003) threw an interception late in the fourth quarter that Nathan Vasher returned 71 yards for a touchdown. That made Dorsey the uglier of the ducklings.

Krenzel (Ohio State, Class of 2004) was in a tough spot, with one half of pro football to his credit, having taken over last week for the inadequate Jonathan Quinn, who had taken over for the injured Rex Grossman. Nothing about the passing of the baton said, "Craig, your time has arrived." Mostly, it said, "Craig, I'd start running if I were you."