Week 16: Bears at 49ers on Fox Sunday at 3pm

[jersey cubs fan]

 

The Bears are 4 point favorites in a road game that may mean a whole lot or very little.

 

I think they play this one for real. Mitch has had too much of a start/stop season to not try and build off what was probably his greatest game.

San Francisco has won 2 in a row, but still suck. They'd be at risk of falling out of the top 5 of the draft if they beat the Bears. That won't happen.

 

[Brian]

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[Brian707]

Not to state the obvious but it would be huge for the Bears to take a top 2 seed. Still unlikely but the Eagles sure made it at least a slight possibility.

 

It will be very tough to have to go thru LA and NO on the road to get to the SB.

[Old Style]

Say the Saints beat Carolina twice & lose to the Steelers while the Bears win their last two. That puts both teams at 12-4 and 10-2 in the NFC. Who wins the tiebreaker?

[Brian]

Say the Saints beat Carolina twice & lose to the Steelers while the Bears win their last two. That puts both teams at 12-4 and 10-2 in the NFC. Who wins the tiebreaker?

 

There wouldn't be a tie, Saints are 13-3 and Bears 12-4 in your scenario

[Old Style]

Say the Saints beat Carolina twice & lose to the Steelers while the Bears win their last two. That puts both teams at 12-4 and 10-2 in the NFC. Who wins the tiebreaker?

 

There wouldn't be a tie, Saints are 13-3 and Bears 12-4 in your scenario

Oops. For some reason I thought we were only one behind them.

[WrigleyField 22]

Say the Saints beat Carolina twice & lose to the Steelers while the Bears win their last two. That puts both teams at 12-4 and 10-2 in the NFC. Who wins the tiebreaker?

 

There wouldn't be a tie, Saints are 13-3 and Bears 12-4 in your scenario

Oops. For some reason I thought we were only one behind them.

But you answer the tiebreaker what if generally speaking, the Bears hold it over LA and NO (but not DAL).

[raw]

Regardless of what happens with New Orleans and LA Rams, I think this is the last meaningful regular season game for the Bears. Even if a bye is on the line, I don't know that you can risk playing valuable players against the team that A) would be your first round opponent and B) took a cheap shot on your QB last time they played and have even more incentive to do something dirty again.

[Butterscup]

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[Hairyducked Idiot]

You 100% play it straight if you’re still alive for the bye.

[WrigleyField 22]

You 100% play it straight if you’re still alive for the bye.

I know they will. I don't know if that's the right approach, but I expect it.

 

Apparently if the bye is in play they could move the Bears back to coincide with the Rams game? In that case, you might get, at best case a halftime adjustment to strategy if either game is out of hand, but you obviously can't change your active roster at that point.

[David]

You 100% play it straight if you’re still alive for the bye.

I know they will. I don't know if that's the right approach, but I expect it.

 

Apparently if the bye is in play they could move the Bears back to coincide with the Rams game? In that case, you might get, at best case a halftime adjustment to strategy if either game is out of hand, but you obviously can't change your active roster at that point.

 

i'd say it's def the right play.

 

football is weird. your superbowl odds increase by skipping a round of the playoff gauntlet + a little bit of added benefit of getting to potentially play the rams at home if you run into them outweighs the risk of a serious injury to a key player (injury that he wouldn't entirely or mostly recover from in time for the divisional round) in trying to win those two games, IMO...even if it does hinge on football being weird enough for the rams to lose to an inferior opponent the next two weeks.

[Chocolate Milk]

Yeah and I don't know that you can just sit Mitch for a few weeks and expect him to come into a playoff game and play well.

[WrigleyField 22]

You 100% play it straight if you’re still alive for the bye.

I know they will. I don't know if that's the right approach, but I expect it.

 

Apparently if the bye is in play they could move the Bears back to coincide with the Rams game? In that case, you might get, at best case a halftime adjustment to strategy if either game is out of hand, but you obviously can't change your active roster at that point.

 

i'd say it's def the right play.

 

football is weird. your superbowl odds increase by skipping a round of the playoff gauntlet + a little bit of added benefit of getting to potentially play the rams at home if you run into them outweighs the risk of a serious injury to a key player (injury that he wouldn't entirely or mostly recover from in time for the divisional round) in trying to win those two games, IMO...even if it does hinge on football being weird enough for the rams to lose to an inferior opponent the next two weeks.

The bye week kind of would scare me with this team (really Mitch), though I guess if you mail it in week 17, that's like a de facto bye, anyways.

 

Obviously if the CHI v MIN matchup is fairly certain, there could be some gamesmanship, i.e. You put in your full effort, but hold back a little from the game plan. I mean, I'm sure there's not much you can hide from a division opponent, but try and win with as vanilla gameplanas possible. OR throw out some weird new stuff that you don't actually plan to use, just to throw them off.

[David]

I'll take the scary bye week infilcted rust over having to actually play an elimination football game 100/100 times.

[jersey cubs fan]

If you're concerned about the Bears playing poorly after a bye week why do you want guys taking week 17 off?

[WrigleyField 22]

I'll take the scary bye week infilcted rust over having to actually play an elimination football game 100/100 times.

Every game is elimination football in the playoffs though lol.

[David]

I'll take the scary bye week infilcted rust over having to actually play an elimination football game 100/100 times.

Every game is elimination football in the playoffs though lol.

 

yes but fewer rounds of elimination are by definition better than more of them

 

it would make a substantial difference to our championship odds

 

i mean i know you know this so i'm just trying to figure out what the hell you meant by that lol

[WrigleyField 22]

I'll take the scary bye week infilcted rust over having to actually play an elimination football game 100/100 times.

Every game is elimination football in the playoffs though lol.

 

yes but fewer rounds of elimination are by definition better than more of them

 

it would make a substantial difference to our championship odds

 

i mean i know you know this so i'm just trying to figure out what the hell you meant by that lol

I guess I just read it differently in context as if there was something unique about the WC elimination (like baseball's).

 

For sure there is just the opportunity context, the more chances at elimination, the better your chances of being eliminated, so that makes sense, but is there any serious study as to the rust factor in football? My casual research on pro football reference guides me to believe most SB winners weren't playing WC weekend, but do bye and non bye teams play similarly as their expected performance? The bye teams might just often be substantially better which is why they advance more, but if the expected matchup is closer, as I would expect any Bears divisional opponent to be, does a rust factor make any difference?

 

Also, convaluted fan logic wants me to see a playoff football win., and more of them if possible.

[David]

not really sure on all that, but don't most teams tend to do better off byes? or is that just more cliche/conventional wisdom stuff that gets said over and over and we just accept it as truth?

[WrigleyField 22]

not really sure on all that, but don't most teams tend to do better off byes? or is that just more cliche/conventional wisdom stuff that gets said over and over and we just accept it as truth?

No idea, but I think I've also been pretty clear from the beginning this is primarily just me talking myself into being okay with the non-bye so I'm not disappointing myself leading up to the playoffs. Even preferring it!

 

I know there are some Chiefs fans and Chargers fans doing the same thing, prepping for a 12 or 13 win season and WC road trip and how it's gonna benefit them because *reasons*.

[gflore34]

How delicious is it that Solomon Thomas, the player that the Niners got in that "fleecing" of the Bears by the genius of a GM - Lynch, has been less than average while the Trubisky and the Bears have turned it around? Hell, Roquan Smith has been better than Thomas.

[Bertz]

not really sure on all that, but don't most teams tend to do better off byes? or is that just more cliche/conventional wisdom stuff that gets said over and over and we just accept it as truth?

 

Teams do better off of byes, Thursday games are super sloppy, and weird upsets are more likely in September are three bits of conventional wisdom that I believe the data has borne out as totally being true.

[gflore34]

I remember ESPN' and other so called experts' reactions to the trade, how one-sided it was, how could Pace and the Bears be so foolish? What was really annoying was the media showing some goof looking horsefeathers from the Nners draft coverage/party/whatever cheering and laughing, think there was some clown from the Green Bay camp as well. In comparing drafts, I'd say the Bears 2017 draft has been superior to the Niners 2017 draft.

[Butterscup]

I'm still of the mindset that the 49ers weren't taking Trubisky and the Bears didn't need to trade up to get him, but I'm not annoyed with the trade anymore.

 

edit: I guess the concern was other teams moving up for it, which of course is possible. doesn't matter, it's working out.