The Bears Sneaking into the NFC Playoff Race

After two consecutive victories the Chicago Bears find themselves in an unexpected position, still alive in the Wild Card race. With the Packers loss to the Giants Monday night the 5-8 Monsters of the Midway are just a game back of five teams with an identical 6-7 record who are tied for the seventh and final playoff spot.

It gets even more interesting when you consider the fact the 7-6 Vikings who hold the sixth playoff spot have a brutal schedule and are down to third-string quarterback Nick Mullens. It’s likely to be a very messy race for the final two spots which are very much up for grabs at the moment.

Before you start printing playoff tickets, however, the Bears odds are still very long at just 5%. To have any realistic chance they probably need to go undefeated the rest of the season. That would put them at 9-8 and at least probably involved in some sort of crazy tiebreaker scenarios.

To add to the drama, Chicago’s final game of the season is in Green Bay against the Packers. A Wild Card spot may come down to the result of that contest. Even if Justin Fields and company no longer have a chance in that Week 18 battle to make the postseason they still could have a chance to knock their hated rivals out as well.

That would definitely be a very nice consolation prize and as the Detroit Lions demonstrated last season, it can be a springboard to a winning campaign the following year. The most frustrating part of this whole situation is the fact the Bears squandered two double-digit leads against the Broncos and the aforementioned Lions that would have them at a 7-6 record right now if they had held on.

Let’s see if Chicago can keep going and make things a little more interesting the next month. It sure would be fun to watch.