Chicago Bears vs Minnesota Vikings: NFL Week 17 Pre-Party Livestream and Open Thread

We're finally here. The final game of the Bears' worst season since 2004 brings some mixture of relief and the usual "End of the season" reaction, but tomorrow brings with it a bit of a crossroads for this team. Coaches may be gone, front office personnel may be gone, even a couple players may be gone; we'll see tomorrow if any changes come about for the team.

But until then, there's a game to play, and it's one that could give the Bears their sixth win of the season, as they head up to Minnesota to take on Jared Allen's old team, the Minnesota Vikings. The Vikings without Adrian Peterson could post their second-highest win total since the retirement of Brett Favre at seven wins - but they have to push the Bears to 5-11 to do it.

The Bears meanwhile would be starting Jimmy Clausen in this game, but since he got concussed last week, Jay Cutler makes one last appearance for the year, and not the rookie David Fales. Can the Bears' offense show just a little bit of life in the final game, or will it go the same as most other games this season?

To buy tickets, visit the NFL Ticket Exchange.

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From the Lester A. Wiltfong, Jr School of Self-Promotion:

The final in-season edition of the Weekend Bears Den is upon us, and it's totally the star on top of your Christmas tree. Everything in your life is incomplete without it.

I've put together how you can follow the game as well as this week's Ugh, You Again and Six Keys combo post.

Lester put together the Injury Report for this week.

Sam's looking at some possible milestones and numbers of note for the Bears in this final game.

This week's Sackwatch was not very busy, but still very well done, because Les is the true offensive line guru (No, Mike Tice, put your hand down).

Other Bears news for the week included the IR-ing of Willie Young and re-signing of Austen Lane, the extension of Roberto Garza, and the naming of Kyle Long to the Pro Bowl.

The procedures for today are the usual ones for the noon game. The first quarter thread will show up just before kickoff, with subsequent quarter threads appearing as the game goes on. After the game, we'll post the immediate recap, the late threads for the later games, and we'll have Notes for you in the morning. We'll also bring you the Bears' draft position as soon as it's finalized.

With the propers out of the way, one last time, Bear Down, my friends.

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And of course, we'll be bringing you the Week 17 edition of the WCG Sunday Livestream. For about two hours, we'll discuss last week's game and this week's game, as well as continue the end-of-season discussion and just what this team can do to bring itself back next year.

There are a couple ways you can get a hold of us:

• Leave comments here, in this thread, to be stared at, walked around, and eventually picked up by someone on the other team and returned for a touchdown. Or read and responded to by us.
• Over on my Twitch channel (http://twitch.tv/sjs_illini)
• Over on the Twitters (@SJS_illini, @SamHouseholder)

We'll go live at 9:30 AM CT, this time with everything in working order just like we had it. We'll see you then.

Watch live video from SJS_illini on www.twitch.tv