I hope you are right, because even with a win this weekend in Detroit, I still shudder at the math every time I look at the standings. I fear an all-too-likely scenario where the Bears stay home while teams like Tampa Bay and St. Louis get in.

i do not see tampa bay making the playoffs.

Well, hopefully they crap down their pants like they should, and then yeah they'll miss. But, they are 7-4 and have Washington, Seattle, and Detroit still on their schedule. If they win those three, that's 10-6. And they'll have the tie-breaker over the Bears on both NFC record and common opponents (namely Seattle and Washington).

1 win out of the next 3 and the Packers wins the division. It just seems pretty apparent that the division is coming down to that last game at Green Bay.

As for the wild card, I'm conceeding on spot to the Saints. The other is between the Bears/Packers/Giants/Eagles. We have to root for the Giants to win the division because the Bears have the head to head win over the Eaglos and a loss to the Giants.

I think it is going to take 11 wins to make the playoffs and all 4 of these last games are shaping up to be tough.

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And men have lost their reason.

yeah. it's fairly evident that a 10-6 (maybe 2?) or even 11-5 team will miss the playoffs...and an 8-8 West winner will make the playoffs. tampa's actually better than i wanted them to be. after the saints thrashed them at home i was hoping that would be the reality wake up call to all those thinking that the bucs were anything more than pretenders. but they played both the ravens and the falcons pretty well and probably should have won the falcons game. they may be a scary team in the near future and i think freeman is developing into a pretty decent QB.

it's weird how bad i think the NFC is, and yet there are so many teams with 8-4, and 9-3 records.

This comes full circle as now we need Minnesota to play well these last 4 weeks. They play the Eagles, Bears and Giants. Bears are in a good spot if they beat the Vikes and the Vikes beat the Eaglos and Giants.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Detroit better continue playing well at home with the Packers next week. I'm going to be really pissed if the Pack blows them out from the beginning.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

Truth be told, if the Bears had tackled better in the 1st half and didn't lose the ball early in the 2nd half, the Bears likely would have had a 2 score margin of victory.

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So if the Bears made no mistakes in the game, they would have won by more?

Great analysis....

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If the Lions can upset the Packers next week in Detroit and the Bears beat the Pats and then the Vikes 2 weeks from now, the Bears win the division.

A loss next week by the Packers give the Packers 5 losses and 2 division losses. If the Bears can win the next 2 games it would give them 11 wins (which the Packers could only match) but the Bears would be guaranteed a better division record regardless of what happens the last week in GB.

This is asking alot. You need a 2 win team to pull off a big upset and then the Bears to beat one of the better teams in the AFC and a rejuvinated Vikes team. I just hope that old man Favre can stick around til the Bears game so that Peppers can end his career.

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I'd accept each team losing to the Patriots and winning their divisonal game. Then the Pack plays the Giants and the Bears get the Jets before they meet.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

If you are going to lose one down the stretch, next Sunday would be an OK one to lose. No tiebreaker implications. That's true of the Jets game as well.

As long as the other teams in contention keep winning, the Vikings game becomes something close to a must win. Luckily, a lot of the remaining teams in contention play each other a few times, so there are some losses baked into the schedule.

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Fire Phil Emery

I haven't looked at all of the possibilities, but couldn't the fact that the Packers beat the Jets come into play in a tiebreaker scenario if the Bears were to lose to them?

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True, but that would apply to almost every game on the schedule, since 14 of the 16 are common. The only uncommon games on the schedule are the NFC South games (GB lost and Bears won) and the NFC West games (Bears lost and Packers still have theirs to play). Assuming the Packers win their game against SF, that will come out even, and it would drop to the conference record tiebreaker. That's why losing to an AFC team isn't too bad.

All this assumes that the Bears beat the Vikings and the Lions beat the Packers though. In division records are the second tiebreaker (head to head is the first).

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Fire Phil Emery

I disagree. If the Bear win Sunday then against the Jet, they maintain that one game lead which means that the game against GB is the insignificant one, which would be my preference.

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That's true just insofar as you'd always rather win than lose. I just mean, if I told you the Bears were going to lose two more and I asked you to pick which two you'd like to lose, you would pick the AFC games since the other games matter more for the playoff tiebreaker stuff. Hopefully they win on Sunday and it's all academic.

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Fire Phil Emery

I completely goofed above and forgot that the Packers played SF yesterday. So if the Packers and Bears end with the same record, they will have the same record against common opponents.

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Fire Phil Emery