CHICAGO — Arian Foster's eyes keep wandering — around all the TV cameras, over the heads of the reporters camped around his locker.

Is Foster anxious over potential fallout from revealing that he still occasionally eats meat despite his vegan conversion? Is he bracing for a crush of plant devotees wondering why?

Hardly.

He cannot stop looking over because backup tailback Justin Forsett is banishing the championship belt he and wide receiver Andre Johnson own because of their continued basketball success over Foster and Ben Tate. The teams of two play quick shooting games after Texans' practices and Johnson and Forsett are on quite a roll against Foster and Tate.

"They've had the belt for a while," Foster admits glumly.

And you thought Foster would be stressing about the Chicago Bears' defense heading into this Sunday Night Football showdown between 7-1 teams in the Windy City? Please, Foster isn't as worried over Peanut (Bears cornerback Charles Tillman, he of the seven forced fumbles) as he is about a game where peanuts aren't even on the line.

This NBC showcase is another chance for Foster to continue to show that he's a proven primetime player (if you need a refresher course, just refer to No. 23's playoff game in Baltimore or his Monday Night Football game in New York). But Foster yearns for something much smaller time too.

"It's not just the $3.99 the belt costs at Costco," Foster says of the cheap plastic-looking object of his desire. "It represents something much larger than that."

Namely bragging rights. Which, come to think of it, is pretty much what this Sunday Night showdown means on a much grander scale.

A loss isn't going to ruin either the Texans or the Bears season, but only one team — only one defense really — gets to walk away with a giant pelt.

Defense has dominated the pregame buildup. In many ways, rightly so.

Wade Phillips' Bulls On Parade and Rob Marinelli's new-age Monsters of the Midway will be sizing each other up from across the field for 60 high-intensity minutes.

"I’ve always told our players that," Phillips says. "If our defense can play better than the other defense, whoever we’re playing, if we can hold them to less points than they hold our offense, then we'll win.

"That way you don’t ever point fingers and say, ‘Well our offense didn’t do this or didn’t do that.’ "

Phillips wants the burden. It's obvious that the Texans difference maker is more than a little annoyed by the repeated, largely clueless, questions about the Sunday night loss to Green Bay and the idea of the Texans coming up small in primetime.

"I think we played on Monday night too," Phillips deadpans, referring to the Texans' road win over the Jets. "Didn't we?"

An Offensive Edge

As entertaining and effective as a bothered Phillips is, Houston arguably has a much bigger edge over Chicago on the other side of the ball. Sports Illustrated even wrote a feature this week on how offensively-challenged the Bears can be.

This is where Foster runs in. If he has another big primetime showcase, the Texans will win.

Matt Schaub has been a much more consistent quarterback this season (just check out his quarterback ratings) than the hot-headed Jay Cutler and his one-man Chicago receiving corps. Foster has been a more consistent back than the Bears' all-pro Matt Forte too.

Chicago knows it needs to force at least one of these two Texans — and arguably both — to make a big mistake to win. But Foster isn't exactly sweating this focus.

"You work on ball security for every game," he says.

Then his eyes catch that belt again.

"This is really tearing you up, isn't it?" Johnson cracks.

"They won, whatever," Foster says later when another belt question comes up.

The running back shakes his head. He'll have to take his bragging rights on Sunday night.