Brian Urlacher is dumb.

Don't worry; he asked me to call him that.

Talking about his pain-killing injections, the Chicago Bears linebacker didn't blink when an interviewer informed him that use of the anti-inflammatory drug he takes to get back into the fray can lead to kidney failure.

Urlacher said the possible side effects really don't enter into his, um ... thinking.

" ... We love football," Urlacher said. "We want to be on the field as much as we can be. If we can be out there, it may be stupid, it may be dumb; call me dumb and stupid then because I want to be on the football field."

Urlacher even admitted that he would lie to team doctors about having symptoms of concussion -- you know, that little brain injury that can lead to dementia, a quality of life you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy and, all too often, an early grave.

"If I have a concussion these days, I'm going to say something happened to my toe or knee just to get my bearings for a few plays," Urlacher said. "I'm not going to sit in there and say I got a concussion. [Then] I can't go in there the rest of the game."

Wow. Urlacher isn't just dumb, he's doubly dumb. By admitting he'll lie about having a concussion, he's telling the Bears' medical staff to doubt his veracity. He's signaling to them they have to be extra careful about returning him to the game after a blow to the head.

Which totally defeats his intention, unless ...

Wow.

By admitting he'll lie about concussion symptoms, Urlacher guarantees he'll gets better care, noggin-wise, than his teammates while at the same time getting the locker-room rep as an über-warrior who'll do anything to stay on the field, battling with his buds.

Brian Urlacher is really smart!

(Just kidding -- he's really dumb.)

• • •

Ray Lewis is smart.

Instead of kicking Billy Cundiff when he was down, he came to his defense -- albeit with a cliché.

"Not one play won or lost this game," Baltimore's star linebacker said shortly after watching Cundiff miss a last-second 32-yard field goal that would have sent the Ravens' AFC title game with New England into overtime. "There's no 'Oh, Billy's the fault. Billy missed the [kick].' There's no freaking 'Billy missed the kick.' It happened. Move on."

Lewis might have been seething inside, but he knows that a) nothing good comes from piling on a teammate for a physical mistake, and b) Cundiff could be the Ravens' kicker again next season.

• • •

Billy Cundiff is classy.

Like San Francisco's Kyle Williams, whose mishandling of two punts cost the 49ers in their NFC title game loss to the New York Giants, Cundiff didn't hide from reporters following his team's crushing loss.

He even had the presence of mind to add a touch of perspective to the situation by mentioning his two kids.

"There are some lessons I need to teach them," he said. "First and foremost is to stand up and face the music and move on."

That reminds me: Brian Urlacher has kids -- three, to be exact -- who might want their dad not to become the next Dave Duerson or Mike Webster or Andre Waters or any number of former players whose tragic post-career life and early death can be linked to chronic traumatic encephalopathy from blows to the head.

It's one thing to play a dangerous sport and accept its risks; it's another thing to court those risks. At 33, Urlacher is old enough (and, one would hope, smart enough) to know the difference.

Contact Jim Gordon at gjames43@msn.com.