If you're wondering what, precisely, "not mathematically eliminated" means, this will be a breakdown of what needs to happen for that dying ember of a playoff dream to once again ignite.

There's no real need to point out that this is unlikely, or that the Bears would get clobbered in the wildcard round, or that our line sucks and so who cares - this is just the math.

Okay. So Kyle Orton struts onto the field and starts slinging passes like the reincarnation of Johnny Unitas. His beard is gone, replaced by a mane of fire. Garrett Wolfe starts zipping under the legs of the opposing backs for first downs on every carry at seventy-five miles an hour. Devin Hester runs straight into the end zone on every play and Orton launches it beautifully into his hands. Nathan Vasher's groin is suddenly magnificent. Brian Urlacher takes the next three days off of practice to visit an ancient mystical acupuncturist in the Himalayas who cures his arthritis and every opposing defense has forgotten how to read the Cover-2. Bernard and Moose start playing like their hands are covered in sticky-tack. Whatever it takes to win the games, pretend it happens.

Here's the rest of the math, week-by-week.

Week 15:
Bears must beat the Vikings. Obviously, this has to happen. It puts the Bears at 6-8, and the Vikings at 7-7. That's the only thing that needs to happen in Week 15 to keep the Bears alive. Aside from that, there are a handful of things that should happen - Washington losing to New York, Arizona losing to New Orleans, and Detroit losing to San Diego would all be good things, but even if they don't happen, the Bears are still not mathematically eliminated from contention.

Week 16:
Bears must beat the Packers. Again, obvious. This has two effects, though - it puts the Bears divisional record at 3-3, and would leave the Vikings at 2-4, meaning if the two teams have the same record at the end of the year, the tiebreaker goes to Chicago.

If Detroit, Arizona, and Washington all won their Week 15 games, then they have to lose this one. So, depending on how the previous week went, you may need to root for Kansas City, Atlanta (yow!), and/or the Vikings (double-yow!)

Oddly, Carolina isn't eliminated yet, either. They need to lose at some point in the final three weeks, as well - against either Dallas, Seattle, or Tampa Bay.

New Orleans and Philadephia, incidentally, are non-entities here. If the Bears win out, then we'd beat either team in a tie-breaker regardless of their record.

Week 17:
Bears need to beat New Orleans. Still for the same obvious reason.

After that, you have to root against the Vikings, unless they lost the previous week to the Redskins. If they -did- lose to the Redskins, then you have to hope Dallas isn't resting their starters and takes the game seriously. The Redskins need to lose two of their next three games. Same as Arizona and Detroit. So root for Denver, Dallas, St Louis, and the Packers (I know...) and that's it.

To recap:
Bears must win out.

Minnesota, Arizona, Detroit, and Washington must lose two of their next three games. Most of them plays at least two teams that can beat them. Arizona has an easier schedule, but didn't look so hot today.

Carolina must lose one game.

And that's the math. The rest, well - we've seen what this team has going for it, and it's not pretty. But if you were curious what, precisely, it would take for the Bears to make the most of the mathematics that keep them alive.

Oddly, it's even still possible for a 7-9 team to make the playoffs in the pathetic NFC (not the Bears, though) - the Redskins or the Vikings could do it, if everyone else loses out.

--d

1. Direct snap to Hester. See also: bubble screen to Hester, or any silly offensive gimmick play designed to mimic the effect of a punt return. While we all know that it's very exciting every time Hester returns a punt for a touchdown, and he does it more often than any player in football, he still only does it 7% of the time. That means that 93% of the time, we'll lose yardage on the play. And even that's only assuming that the blocking formation could be as well-placed as it is on a punt return.
2. How much you miss Thomas Jones. Have you seen Thomas Jones' numbers this year? He's getting old and he's not having a better year than Cedric Benson, except he's been fortunate enough to avoid an injury. But in New York, they're not celebrating that fact. He ran for a whopping 2.4 yards per carry against Dallas last week. That's less than Benson got when we played them. He ran for 2.8 against the Giants - are you really so sad that he isn't starting for us next week? He has zero touchdowns this season. Do you really think he'd be doing better if he had Fred Miller blocking for him?
3. "Getting McNabb". Stop it. They want three first-round draft picks. Trading three first-round draft picks for goddamn Peyton Manning would be a mistake. For McNabb, it's insane. McNabb's under contract to the Eagles, and he's not coming to Chicago. We don't need an aging, injured former star to come to our rescue. We need an offensive line we can trust and we need a defense that makes those concerns less relevant. I know he and Tommie Harris are buddies, and I want Tommie Harris to be happy, too, but it won't happen, it shouldn't happen, and we'll all be better for it not happening.
4. Blaming Jerry Angelo. Remember your friends Devin Hester, Tommie Harris, Nathan Vasher, Bernard Berrian, Greg Olsen, Charles Tillman, and Lance Briggs? Jerry Angelo brought them here. I know you wish we had a zillion yards rushing this year, but Angelo's not to blame. Angelo built this team with smart picks and has been right on at least 80% of his decisions. Even if you consider Benson a mistake, even if you've decided that Archuleta is the worst player to ever don a Bears uniform, his track record is mostly that he brought all of those great players to Chicago, not the handful of guys who haven't quite worked out.
5. What you "know" about Kyle Orton. Look, we all love his beard. Yeah, he was great at Purdue, and the Bears did have a good record his rookie year. However: that is all we know about him. It makes sense to play him when we're having a quarterback crisis and we need to determine who we're going to have at that position in the future. He may be great. But we don't know that, because he's yet to play a regular season game with the full playbook. If you loved the way he played in '05, that means nothing - he was a rookie thrust into an unenviable position and he did only the small things that were asked of him. If you hated the way he played in '05, that means nothing - he was a rookie thrust into an unenviable position and he did only the small things that were asked of him. I would very much like to see Kyle Orton on the field in a Bears uniform at some point, as I like his beard and think that there may be some potential there, and I'd prefer to see it realized while he's in Chicago. But no one knows anything about him - we don't know that he's a bad quarterback, we don't know that he's a good quarterback. All we know is that he's on the bench right now, and when the season reaches a point where evaluating the bench becomes a higher priority than trying to score that wildcard, it'll be time to give him a look. In the meantime, he's a big question mark, not a savior and not a loser.
6. Drafting Colt Brennan. He'll be a good option when the Bears start playing against college teams.

That was a weird game to watch.

Rex Grossman took the field and it was like a bizarre flashback, like Walt showing up in the season finale of 'Lost', this bizarre blast from a past that seemed long gone. Ten'll get you twenty that Griese's injury was a political move, a way to get him out of the game without making Lovie backtrack from his "Brian is our guy" stance. I've no doubt that he was hurt and all, but it's a textbook dive - Grossman gets some extra snaps, just in case, and then suddenly Griese's hurt.

So what to make of Rex?

He's damn sure one of the finest players in the NFL when it comes to jumping on a botched snap. He must have worked on that during his off-weeks; in the past, he might have lost the ball, but today he was right on top of it. Hopefully he'll hang around for a few weeks and we'll get to see this newly-honed skill of his in action. What's more exciting than seeing someone in a Bears jersey really hustle to do something on the field? Cedric Benson, take notes!

But Benson had a good game today, relatively speaking. He ran like he had at least a little bit of interest in being closer to the line of scrimmage, if not the first-down marker or the end zone. And it's baby steps we're after, right? He's literally tip-toeing toward his goal of keeping his starting job. How bizarre is it to defend a running back's performance by proclaiming that he played like he really wanted to win and he rarely gave up today? I mean, it's true - he did look better today than he had all year, but let's be real. He may have pushed to get extra yards on most of his rushes today, but that's a running back's job. It'd only be noteworthy that he hustled to get extra yards on every play if he were, like, the long snapper.

But who wants to focus on the negative? We won! Get on the happy bus; we're going to the beach!

How 'bout that defense? Remember Adewale Ogunleye? McCown is going to. Remember why we want Lance Briggs to hang around for the next half-dozen seasons? Remember what it felt like to be confident that when the Other Team had the ball, the defense would actually be able to stop them? That's a good feeling. I missed that feeling. I had it today, though, and expect that it might even continue for a couple more games. This isn't the "holy shit, I can't believe we pulled it off" victory we had against the Eagles or the Packers. Our defense looked like a real professional American football squad instead of a bunch of drunken South African rugby players lined up against a Pro Bowl offense on a CFL field. If this keeps up, you might be able to go to a sports bar and hear them play "Bear Down, Chicago Bears" and not get mad at the bartender for playing it ironically. It's possible that we're all actually Bears fans because it can be fun to see them on the field. I had almost forgotten.

As for offense? Er, Moose looks good, huh? Hot damn, way to go, Moose. And that sure was a long pass Bernard Berrian caught, too. I'm betting you all saw it. Looooong. Little Garrett Wolfe even got all dressed up in a football player's outfit and they let him run with the ball once. And we were afforded the opportunity to watch the offense rise and fall without the over-use of our tight ends.

Yeah, the happy bus hasn't got a ton of room for the offense, but what's so bad about that? This is the Chicago Bears, remember. Did you expect a dominant offense? They delivered when they needed to and they didn't blow it when it would have lost the game. It doesn't matter if the quarterback is Rex Grossman or Brian Griese or Keanu Reeves' character from 'The Replacements'. It doesn't matter if the running back is Cedric Benson or Adrian Peterson or a silverback gorilla in a hand-sewn jersey and an oversized helmet. A couple decent passes, no interceptions or fumbles, three yards or so a carry, and a clutch pass when a clutch pass is called for and maybe there's some life left in the old dog after all.

I'm laying odds on Grossman starting next week. Wait for the word from the office - something about Griese having done a great job, but after Rex's clutch pass and careful managing of the offense in this crucial second half, it only makes sense to give him another shot. And that might be fine. If our defense is stiff, our receiving corps keeps catching passes (or breaking it up when Grossman decides to pass to an opposing cornerback - thanks, Greg!), we may be able to squeak by. Especially if the Giants, Redskins, Lions, Vikings, and Panthers all keep losing.

A squeaker against the Raiders? A couple weeks ago, there were a good number of us who doubted we'd even be able to manage that. Progress, not perfection, kids.

Well, clearly this ain't working.

Everybody's got their eye on a quarterback - either a first-rounder, or a vet who may be a bit past his prime, but with the hope that there's some life left in 'em. It's obvious at this point that Grossman's finished in Chicago, and it should be just as clear that Brian Griese isn't the solution to that problem.

A rookie draftee can't carry Chicago, and we're a ruthless bunch - a couple bad games and he'll be as rattled as poor Rex was, unable to force a decent play and folding under the pressure until he's traded away or lost to free agency, where he'll blossom (see also: Rex Grossman's Pro Bowl caliber performance for the Dolphins in 2010) and we'll curse our shitty luck.

An old vet is unnecessary, too. Brian Griese's an old vet. Donovan McNabb is two years younger and can't scramble anymore. What do we gain from bringing him in?

And so right now, Griese's our guy. But you can't build a franchise around a quarterback like Brian Griese. He's old; he's proven throughout his career that he's unspectacular; he's got a few years left, but he's certainly already peaked physically and he was never really starter material to begin with. He's a sturdy, reliable backup, and he's good to have in the event of an injury or the extremely bad play that Grossman exhibited at the beginning of the season.

And when Griese was looking great on the field, we were all willing to forget all of that, because what the hell? Why complain about a guy who can actually make big throws and engineer a world-class, game-winning drive? Even when he started in Game Four and looked, well, like a rusty backup QB who hadn't started a game in a couple years, you could tell it wasn't his fault and he'd get his chance to get it together.

The second Lions game was the point at which it should have become clear that there was no good reason to start Griese. If he's not the future of the franchise, and he's not reliable enough to, you know, not throw off his back foot into triple-coverage, then why play him? If we wanted a quarterback who played like Rex Grossman, we'd have kept Rex Grossman on the field. Lovie would have kept giving those increasingly terse statements about "Rex is our quarterback" and all the love the mere image of Lovie Smith's face on a television screen generates would have vanished.

So Grossman's an unreliable quarterback who makes bad decisions on the field with a contract that ends this year. Griese's an unreliable quarterback who makes bad decisions on the field and who's well into his thirties and has no surprises left to offer. We need another quarterback.

And then there's Kyle Orton.

Right now, Kyle Orton makes a hell of a lot of sense. Any young quarterback we bring in will take time to develop, require patience before they can achieve consistently. The failure to develop young talent is the reason we feel so damned unlucky when a player we let go and they turn out to be a superstar elsewhere. If they don't stroll into the league fully-formed like Devin Hester (and I'm willing to bet that there were a good number of Bears fans who were shouting at him for being an idiot for the first fifteen or twenty seconds that he ran that field goal back against the Giants last year), then we hate them with fiery passion.

But Kyle Orton's young talent who we don't have to burn a draft pick on. He's got potential - he saw the Bears through a tough season and didn't fail to do what was asked of him. Is that low criteria for promoting a guy to an NFL starting quarterback? Well, hell, it's better than throwing three interceptions in the end zone. Say what you will about his beard, but if Kyle Orton had been the quarterback in the home game against the Lions, we'd have had three field goals instead of three interceptions and could well have won that game. He entered the league in an unenviable position and did exactly what he needed to do to give the Bears a winning season. He's certainly never proven himself as a top-tier player, but he's never blown a chance he's been given, either.

The main reason Orton makes sense is because, even if he's not any more reliable than Grossman or Griese on the field, he has the potential to develop into something, and to do it wearing a Bears jersey. He's the only quarterback on the roster you can say that about.

To be certain, I'm not suggesting dumping Griese tomorrow and starting Orton against Oakland (though if Lovie had announced it a week and a half ago, I'd have been cheering) - but if Griese has another game this season like he did at home against Detroit, there's no reason at all to keep him as the starter.

I think Rex got a bad shake, but clearly he's finished in Chicago. I think Griese could be an adequate quarterback to steward the team through the season, if he limits his bad decisions - he's certainly capable of good play, after all. But even if we give him time to develop, he'll be in his mid-thirties by the time we see a return on our patience.

Orton has got potential. He may never deliver on it, but even having it is a step ahead of Griese and Grossman.

I hate the "season is over" talk, but - crap. If we can be made to look this bad against the Lions at home, who are we expecting to beat?

Charles Tillman, Lance Briggs, and Devin Hester are the only people on the team that consistently look like they're professional football players who expect that they can win. Everyone else is tentative and sloppy and half-asleep. Urlacher looks tired and depressed, like he's never gotten over the Grossman era, where any big plays his defense might make bought them a forty-five second respite before they were back on the field. He still makes the faces but he's got the look in his eyes of a dog that's been bred too many times, the constant look of exhaustion and annoyance at something that's supposed to be fun.

And Griese? I don't know what happened to that guy. Where the hell was that confident arm that took short gains the past few games? Why on earth was he trying to force big touchdowns and getting intercepted three times in the damn end zone? I kept expecting him to pull of a mask, Scooby Doo-villain style, and reveal that it was secretly Rex Grossman all along. Good Brian/Bad Brian? Say it ain't so.

The good news is that our schedule is pretty light from here on out, excepting the Giants. If somehow the bye week and getting healthy can make a difference, we'll know soon. If it doesn't, I'm pretty much of the opinion that you start Kyle Orton and see if he's got any juice so we can plan for the future at quarterback - obviously you can't build a franchise around Griese. Maybe we can start Orton on defense, too - he couldn't be any worse than McBride, right? Get him in as the short-man on kick returns too, really ramp up the triple-threat...

What else can you say? Has Brad Maynard got any experience at quarterback? He always seems so collected and calm under pressure, and he never fails to deliver in his current role. Anyone have Chris Leak's number? Or Ryan Leaf's? What about hijacking a bunch of South African rugby players and starting them as the offensive line? It's possible that the problem is that we're just not thinking creatively enough. The Brian Griese Cinderella story played out much better last year with Jeff Garcia, and nobody likes a cliche. Is there anything in the NFL rulebook about getting a silverback gorilla in a Bears helmet and jersey and playing him at fullback? Jason McKie's an underused bright spot on the offense, but I'm willing to bet he can't ward off tacklers like a real live gorilla. With a bit of luck, Ron Turner would antagonize him with some peanuts and the ape would rip his arms off. There's no way this can go wrong!

See, you've got to have hope, because this was just ugly. There were fits and starts of promise, but we're halfway through the season and promise means nothing - at some point you have to accept that Brian Griese isn't a starting quarterback, that Cedric Benson doesn't really want to be in the NFL at all, that the offensive line is too old to hold up, that the defense doesn't expect to win games anymore, that the receivers can hardly hold on to the ball, that the reason Devin Hester is the only person on the team anyone talks about is that he's the only player worth talking about right now.

3-5. Well, hell - it's the NFC, anything can happen. All it'll take is for us to, you know, win consecutively. The season ain't over, but it's sure as hell going to take a team that plays like winners to keep from being big, big losers.