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Welcome to the true bye week, those 14 days between games that make you want to pull your hair out. But all is not lost, fellow Bears' fan, for you can spend part of today rooting against the two teams most in the mix of the NFC North!
Yes, you too can experience the joy of rooting for the Vikings to take out the 4-2 Packers and force them into a tie with the Bears, as well as rooting for the Cowboys to drop the Lions to 4-4! ... Okay, maybe joy isn't the right word for it.
In all seriousness, the Bears would probably love nothing more than to wash the taste of whatever the crap that was last week out of their mouths by getting right to Packers week, but they get to spend today doing the same thing you and I will be doing - watching football and going back to work tomorrow morning.
It's a shorter schedule this week, but there are still some games of intrigue - mostly bad.
Green Bay Packers at Minnesota Vikings
8:30 PM ET - Hey guys, remember rooting for the Packers last year in Week 17 so the Bears could get into the playoffs? Wasn't that fun watching Minnesota (or more specifically Adrian Peterson) just run the Bears' playoff hopes into dust? Now you know what you're hoping for today, because whatever gets played at quarterback just doesn't get anything done. It's a division game, and it's in Minnesota, so here's hoping?
Dallas Cowboys at Detroit Lions
1:00 PM ET - "America's Team" (gag) currently leads the NFC East. They go to Detroit to face the Lions, who are anywhere from first to third depending on how you personally rank winning percentage/games played and your various Bears' biases. (Yes, I know they're second thanks to winning percentage, thank you much.) The point is the 3rd place team in the NFC North is tied for the NFC East lead. As much as I'd love to be rooting for the Lions against the Cowboys just on principle, go Cowboys.
As far as other wild card implications, the Jaguars take on the 5-2 San Francisco 49ers and the 3-4 Eagles get the Giants, so maybe rooting for New York to push the Eagles further out is in your interest (the current Wild Card holders are the Niners and some combination of Panthers, Lions and Bears, and the Panthers already played this week).
This is your Pre-Party Open Thread for Week 8. What are you watching this week?
(Got some unexpected things to take care of this morning, so currently, no word on there being a Pre-Stream this week - we'll see if I have any time upon getting home to put one together. If so, I'll leave a comment and put the player in this spot. Thank you for understanding - Management.)