Chicago Bears Can Close Season as NFL’s Biggest Spoiler
Published by Zach Kruse on December 3, 2014
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
Spoiler alert: The 5-7 Chicago Bears can play like gangbusters over the final four games of the 2014 season, and it still won’t mean a thing. A nine-win team isn’t making the postseason as a wild card in the NFC. It’s only a matter of time before Chicago is mathematically eliminated from playoff contention.
But if there’s any allure for the Bears in playing out the rest of this season, outside of saving jobs and restoring pride to a proud franchise, it’s the opportunity to spread their misery in the role of spoiler.
Over the final four games, Chicago will welcome three potential playoff teams in the NFC to Soldier Field, starting Thursday night against the 8-4 Dallas Cowboys. The 5-7 New Orleans Saints and 8-4 Detroit Lions follow. All three teams will expect wins over the Bears. All three teams might need wins over the Bears.
Chicago’s season will then end with a whimper in what is sure to be a cold, dreary and potentially snowy Minnesota in Week 17.
No team wants to be playing spoiler to start December. This is the month where playoff berths are clinched and the contenders split from the pretenders. The Bears are a spoiler and very much a pretender after what can only be considered a disastrous, disappointing and all-around dreadful first 12 games.
Many employees inside Halas Hall are fighting to keep said employment. Head coach Marc Trestman might have four more games to prove he deserves a third season in Chicago, and coordinator Mel Tucker is likely on his last leg controlling the defense. Seasons like these force a roster builder like general manager Phil Emery to look at all 53 players and re-evaluate their standing.
For the Bears, the final four games of 2014 are about survival. They have been presented a platform of meaningful games, of which all three will be played at home.
Which coaches and players will embrace the opportunity of competing against a few of the best teams in the conference, even if the season is already lost? Who will put forth the effort for all the paying customers that likely bought their tickets months ago, expecting Chicago to be fighting for a postseason spot at this point in the season?
The Bears need three wins in four games to finish .500. Chicago has just two losing seasons since 2004.
The march back to respectability begins Thursday night, when two teams that were rocked on Thanksgiving Day meet again in prime time. Chicago’s season all but ended with a 34-17 loss in Detroit, while the Cowboys fell out of first place in the NFC East thanks to a 33-10 throttling by the Philadelphia Eagles.
Dallas is 6-0 away from home this season, but the Cowboys need conference wins. Both the Seattle Seahawks and Lions possess the conference-record tiebreaker over Dallas, which is why the Cowboys currently find themselves on the outside looking in as the No. 7 seed. Seattle and Detroit are 6-2 inside the NFC, while the Cowboys are just 5-4.
A fifth loss in the conference (and fifth overall) would severely complicate the road to the postseason for Dallas, even with a rematch looming with the Eagles next week. The Cowboys are approaching must-win territory.
The Bears can derive some sense of confidence from the 45-28 beating put on Dallas in Chicago last season. Backup quarterback Josh McCown threw for 378 yards and four touchdowns, and running back Matt Forte registered 175 total yards and a score. Early in the fourth quarter, Chicago led 42-14.
But it’s clear there’s no sense in comparing what the Bears offense could do in 2013 to what the Bears offense can do now.
After back-to-back Thursday games, Chicago will receive 11 days before welcoming the Saints to Soldier Field for Monday Night Football.
At 5-7, New Orleans should really be out of the postseason picture. But in the terrible NFC South, no club—even the 2-10 Tampa Bay Buccaneers—has been or can be ruled out.
The three division games left on the Saints’ schedule are obviously more important in the long run. If New Orleans takes care of business at home against Carolina and Atlanta and on the road in Tampa Bay in the season finale, the Saints will win the division. The result in Chicago won’t matter. Still, in this four-team race, any one win could be the difference between a division title and a high draft pick next spring.
Chicago’s best chance at truly playing spoiler will come in Week 16.
The Lions are currently 8-4 and in control of their destiny in terms of winning the NFC North. If Detroit wins out, the Lions will capture the division at 12-4 and likely secure a first-round bye in the postseason.
All paths seem to lead to Week 17, when Detroit goes on the road to play the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. If all goes to plan, that matchup will represent a de facto division title game, with the winner taking the NFC North and a week off in January.
The Bears could throw a wrench into that scenario.
More than likely, the Lions can’t afford a loss before traveling to Green Bay for the finale. The Packers have a visit from the Falcons and road trips to Buffalo and Tampa Bay coming up, which presents the very real possibility that Green Bay is 12-3 going into Week 17. If the Lions lose just one game between now and then, say a road game in Chicago, the season finale might not mean much, if anything at all.
Win or lose, the Bears will help shape the six playoff participants in the NFC over the next three weeks.
Playing spoiler is obviously not the ideal situation, especially for a club many believed would be battling Green Bay for the NFC North crown in 2014. Games against Dallas, New Orleans and Detroit should have playoff implications for both clubs—not just one trying to hold off a spoiler.
This is Chicago’s reality. A lost year will end with the Bears trying to ruin the season in a few other NFL cities. It’s not much, but that’s the end game of playing so poorly over the first 13 weeks.
Zach Kruse covers the NFC North for Bleacher Report.
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