11/26: Bears at Green Bay, 7:30 on NBC (Thursday night)

[rawaction]

The Seahawks win kinda sucks for the Bears playoff hopes. The H2H loss to them means they are 2 essentially 2 games ahead of the Bears, and the Bears aren't going to be catching them, even if they win out. So, they're basically fighting for 1 spot.

 

So, the Bears are tied with NY Giants, Redskins, and the Bucs 1 game (record-wise) behind Seattle and Atlanta for the last playoff spot. The Bears currently sit 10th in the conference as they lose tie-breakers with all of these teams currently. However, it appears that the teams the Bears need to be most concerned with are their very own division foes, Green Bay and Minnesota.....2 and 3 games ahead of the Bears, respectively.

 

First, one of the Giants or Redskins will win that division. The Bears face the Redskins and can do well to win that tiebreaker with a H2H win. But even if they don't win that, they just need the Giants to falter. The Giants have hung with the Patriots and beat the Bucs, but got blown out by a terrible Philly team. I don't think they are much of a threat as they haven't been consistent at all. Then, the Bears play the Bucs H2H so if the Bears are going to get in they have to beat them anyway, so that'll take care of them. Atlanta is there, but they still have 2 games vs. Carolina and have lost 5 of 6 and haven't been competitive in most. So, that leaves Min/GB.

 

While it seems pretty daunting to make up 3 games in 5 weeks, the Bears only have to pass 1 of these teams. Looking at the schedules, this isn't as bad as it looks.

 

Vikings have: Seattle, @ Arizona, BEARS, Giants, @ Packers. The big ones are the next 3. Obviously, Bears have to beat them to have any sort of chance. But the Vikings should be underdogs in both games. They could go from 8-3 to 8-5 in a hurry, and then face the Bears in a must win for them.

 

Packers have: @ Lions (Thurs), Cowboys, @ Raiders, @ Arizona, v. Vikings. At Cards should be tough, but it could be after AZ has clinched (and Carolina has clinched HFA). If the red hot Lions show up again, they could take the game this week.

 

But with that Week 17 game, one of the Pack/Vike is guaranteed to lose 1 more game. If the Vikings lose the next 2, and then lose to the Bears, and the Packers lose Thursday night....even if the Bears lose to the Skins in Week 14, it sets up a Week 17 Vikings/Packers game where the winner gets the division, while the loser goes home and the Bears take the 6 seed (and matchup against the winner in the wildcard round). If all else goes the same and the Packers win this week, the Bears will be rooting for GB to win and get them in Week 17.

[UMFan83]

Reading that gave me a headache. I agree the Seahawks win hurt quite a bit.

 

Seahawks still have road games against Minnesota (next week) and Arizona but 3 relatively easy games (@ Baltimore, but don't discount west coast team playing on east coast, vs Cleveland and vs St Louis). Without looking at it as in depth as you, I think we go for the route that includes passing the loser of the Minnesota/Seattle game.

 

Man how things would be different if we traded the AFC West victories for wins over Seattle, Minnesota and Detroit. We might be at 50% odds of a playoff spot right now considering we'd be 5-2 in the conference, 3-1 in the division and H2Hs over Seattle and Minnesota (not to mention being 2 GB Minnesota for divison and 1 GB atlanta for WC with likely tiebreakers)

[JonJayCutler]

After tinkering with the playoff machine for over an hour, a few things…

 

One is that we’d win a tiebreaker over Atlanta (at either 9-7 or 10-6) providing they beat Jacksonville (non-conf) and don’t sweep Carolina. That last one isn’t going to happen, so basically any loss has to be against an NFC team and not the Jags. That’s all.

 

The second is that the playoff machine seems to love the Bears on a multi-team tiebreaker at both 9-7 and 10-6, even against Seattle. I worked out several scenarios for 3 and 4-team tiebreakers (vs ATL, SEA, GB/MIN) with the Bears at both 10-6 and 9-7 and most had them getting into the playoffs, some even had them with the 5th seed. However, any ATL and SEA losses have to be against NFC teams for this to really work, so they need to take care of any remaining AFC opponents (ATL plays JAX, SEA plays BAL and CLE), all games in which they should be favored to do so. I’m also banking on the loser of the NFC East not becoming a factor in the WC (unlikely), as things get a bit trickier if they are.

 

We’re screwed in all two-way tiebreakers (not counting WSH or TB, which we could win H2H) except Atlanta, as mentioned above. One exception would be if Green Bay loses both remaining division games, then we could win a tie with them too.

 

There are a lot more ways to get in at 9-7 than I imagined. It’s unlikely, but very possible. Also, Seattle playing Minnesota this week is good, as we’ll get a helpful result there no matter what.