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Carolina Panthers

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Chicago Bears

We now come to the end of a another Bears football season.  After what may be the biggest off season in Bears history and the hope that came without, it turned out to be a disappointing one.  The Bears get to finish out the season at the lowly Detroit Lions.  After a spectacular win over the Minnesota Lions, this seems a bit anti-climatic, but I guess at least we get to go out on a  win streak and hopefully drop down a few more places in the draft, so the Broncos fall out of the top 10.

Once the season is over the Bears are headed to an off season filled with uncertainty and a lot of work to be done.  It should be an interesting one.

It is not my intent to be all doom and gloom over here, but with the say the Bears have been playing as of late, it is hard to see this thing going well for us.  Prior to yesterday, I was thinking maybe we would get lucky and this Brett Favre/Brad Childress thing would bubble over and create a mess or that the Vikings might sit some starters, but with the Saints horrible loss to the Bucs, the  Vikings are back in the race for the NFC and aren't likely to sit anybody.    That said, for the Bears to win all they need to do is find a offensive line, run game, secondary, pass rush and stop turning the ball over.  Not too much to ask, is it?

It's getting to the point where we have very few things to look forward to.  We aren't out of the playoff race yet, but we need a lot of things to go our way.  We don't have a first day draft pick to look forward to.  What we do have is Packer week.  The Bears gave away the previous game on a late touchdown.  The Packers, after a rough middle is on the upswing and are in the thick of the wildcard race.  What a nice thing to hang on this season to help keep them out of it.

Last Week's Leaders:

Bears

Jay Cutler: 143 yds 1 TD,  96.0 rating

Matt Forte: 91 yds, 1 TD

Greg Olsen: 2 catches, 74  yds

Jamar Williams: 20 tackles

It seems a bit anti climatic to write about what the Bears need to do this week to make the playoffs.  While the math may say we are not yet out of it, we pretty much are.  We should be able to beat a team like the Rams without too much effort, but that probably won't be the case.

Last Week's Leaders:

Bears

Jay Cutler: 147 yds 1 TD, 2 INT

Matt Forte: 27 yds

Greg Olsen: 7 catches, 45 yds

Hunter Hillenmeyer: 9 tackles

Rams

Kyle Boller: 282 yds, 1 TD, 2 INT

Stephen Jackson:89 yds, 1 TD

Ruvell Martin: 2 catches, 60 yrds

James Laurinaitis: 9 tackles

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It is getting increasingly harder every week to find the silver lining for the Bears chances of getting a win and then do how bad do I want them to?  Do I think that the slim chances that the Bears could lose bad enough that they eat  Lovie's contract and shell out 10 mil a year for Cowher is enough reason to root for them to lose?  

But somehow the Bears have a knack of staying in ugly low scoring games.  If the defense can keep it close, and a return or a few turnovers go our way, maybe we have a shot against this high powered Minnesota offense.  Of course for that to happen our offensive line needs to man up and protect Jay Cutler and give Matt Forte a hole or two to run through.   I'm not opportunistic, but I'm hopeful.

I don't even know what to make of the Bears any longer, but they need to put together a big win streak.  With Minnesota twice, Baltimore, and one more versus the Packers, it is getting a bit hard to seeing the Bears make magic happen. They certainly have talent at a lot of positions, but the offensive line needs to be completely retooled, and they need to figure out how to tighten up the secondary.

The Bears are welcoming the high flying Philadelphia Eagles, and it is not a good thing to think of McNabb, Jackson and Maclin against our banged up secondary.   Al Afalava is expected to play, but Kevin Payne is listed as doubtful.  On the Philly side Brian Westbrook is out and pretty much their entire secondary is either out or coming off of an injury.

Even though the Bears are still technically only a game out of the playoff picture, this game is a must win.  The Bears are struggling to get many aspects of their game working.  They cannot block anybody, they cannot run the ball and they cannot cover anybody, which only gets worse with Kevin Payne and possibly Al Afalava out for this game.  The only solace we get is that the 49ers aren't the most pass happy or pass efficient team, ranking 22nd in the league with 182 yards per game.  If the Bears can stop Frank Gore and the run game, the Bears have a real shot at this game. 

The Bears have to start stringing some wins together.  If they can, with two games still left against Minnesota, they can still make a run at the division crown, but they have to start now.