As it's been pointed out, looking it in terms of games they "almost won" or "should have won" is a mostly faulty approach. Ultimately the Bears played a lot of very close games last year, but that's not necessarily a good thing, win or lose. yes, but we aren't judging their place in last year's mix, we're trying to predict how good they'll be this year. if they got even a little bit better, they could be a playoff team. But that's the faulty way to look at it; you're basically the games they barely lost they should have won, yet the games they barely won are, what, not in question at all? They were a very mediocre team last year, which is what so many close wins and losses points more clearly at than the idea that they were "almost a good team" and being just a little better probably isn't going to make much of a difference.