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Cowboys can feel Bears' pain

By Clarence E. Hill Jr. / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

IRVING, Texas -- Several Cowboys, drawing on the memories of the team's woeful 1-15 campaign in 1989, have tried to sympathize with the winless Bears going into tomorrow's game at Texas Stadium.

Try as the Cowboys might, only linebacker Vinson Smith can truly understand what the Bears (0-4) are going through.

A four-year starter with the Bears before signing with the Cowboys this season, Smith knows that he could easily be languishing in the other locker room at the bottom of the NFC Central rather than sitting tied atop the NFC East with the Cowboys (2-1).

"My wife has been telling me all week, ÔWe could be in Chicago' " Smith said. "I haven't said a word. I've been very quiet."

Smith's reticence is partly based on empathy for his former teammates and Bears coach Dave Wannstedt and partly because he knows that the Bears could ease much of their pain with a victory against the Cowboys.

Smith said the Bears got a lot of mileage from last season's 22-6 victory against the Cowboys and would love for a season-turning upset Sunday.

"We had some hard times last year," Smith said. "But because of the type of people that play there, we fought every game. I don't see anything different. They are going to fight.

"It's the same situation like last year. If you beat the Cowboys with all their talent, it could make your season and give you something to feel good about."

Smith, who still has many friends on the Bears and talks to them regularly, is especially disheartened for Wannstedt, who is getting a lot of heat from the Chicago media and could be fired if the Bears don't turn things around.

Considering his close relationship with Wannstedt, Smith knows that his former coach is giving himself more abuse than any that his critics could dish out.

"It's hard to even imagine what he's going through," Smith said. "He is very competitive. If he is not winning, he has a very hard time."

Cowboys guard Nate Newton, who called Wannstedt a "great motivator" and a "super guy," agreed that losing was not something that sits well with Wannstedt.

"He's going through hell," Newton said. "It's got to be burning and eating at him to be 0-4."

Newton and Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman remembered enduring similar hard times in 1989 when the Cowboys began the season 0-8. But both said the situations are decidedly different: the Cowboys were starting a rebuilding project in 1989 and Wannstedt is now in the fifth year with the Bears.

"I've got some idea of what he's going through," Aikman said. "I was 0-8 my rookie year. I know he's got to be extremely disappointed. But they are in a different position than we were. They've had success in the past. In 1989, we didn't have any success to fall back on."

Despite the sympathetic voices, the Cowboys prefer that Wannstedt's misery last at least one more week.

"We don't want them to get that victory against us," said defensive tackle Tony Casillas, who played under Wannstedt, the Cowboys' former defensive coordinator, in the 1992 Super Bowl season.

"We don't want that."