SB Nation picks Bears to finish dead last in 2016

Van Bibber also picked the Arizona Cardinals to finish atop the league, as did Sports Illustrated. I know one thing about NFL preseason predictions and it is this: f*** um.

Seriously, they don't work, at least not in the extreme. If Team X is predicted to win the Super Bowl, I am 99% sure Team X won't get out of the Divisional Round. I can provide only one surefire prediction: the Cardinals won't win the Super Bowl, and the Bears won't be the NFL's worst team.

In fact, it was 11 years ago this week that Sports Illustrated boldly, derisively, and fool-heartedly picked the Bears to finish 32nd out of 32 teams. Paul "Dr. Z." Zimmerman was the man with the cracked crystal ball, slating the Bears to post a 3-13 record and finish, yes, dead last.

His explanation:

My West Coast correspondent, coach TJ, a Bears fan, e-mailed me, "Did you pick that 3-13 yourself or did your editors make you do it?"

Yeah, they made me, TJ. I could take the lighted cigarettes, but when they shaved my wife's head, that was too much. He feels that a defense as good as theirs will spring many upsets, create much havoc.

I feel that, well, could someone please look up the following for me and e-mail your answer to Andrew: what's the record for starting QBs who have gone down, one after another, the following year, either by injury or waiver wire?

I count four, and this will make a hell of a trivia question some day. Grossman, Krenzel, Quinn, Hutchinson. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.