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Good morning. How many of you would take 5-3 at this point of the season? Probably most.
Five wins is a mark that three Bears teams in the last five years have achieved. And when they got there...
2017: Week 16
2015: Week 12
2014: Week 12
The last time the Bears were at 5 wins after Week 9 was in 2013, when the Bears reached that mark with a 27-20 win on Monday Night Football under Marc Trestman, against the Green Bay Packers in Lambeau.
A noon game on a Sunday against the Buffalo Bills in New York is a little less climactic, but still important. The Bears cling to a slim lead in the NFC North after they beat the Jets last week and every other division foe lost, and this week they find themselves up against a 2-6 Bills team that has scored 37 points in their last five games, combined.
But just because Nathan Peterman has so far set nearly unattainable marks in turning the ball over efficiently doesn’t mean this game will be a cakewalk. They come in with a legitimately, scary-good, playoff-level defense, and if the Bears’ developing offense takes a step backward, well... the Minnesota Vikings are on line one, as is everybody who took the Vikings that week in an eliminator pool (hi).
The Navy and Orange, though, have shown quite a bit of resilience, in that when things go backwards, they soon find a way to go forward. And if Mitchell Trubisky continues his team-record setting pace and if Jordan Howard has jumped off the back of that milk carton, another step in the right direction isn’t far behind.
To 5-3. Bear Down, my friends.
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So how do you feel after last week’s win? Did the Bears merely take care of business, or did they assert themselves as an NFC contender? Did Trubisky take another step, or did he take advantage of the Jets’ defense?
We’ll talk about a lot of this and more in this week’s WCGSL. If you want to get your comments and questions in to myself and Sam, you have a bunch of ways to do that:
- Here, these comments. Look down.
- Over on Twitch, at SJS_illini
- Or on our Twitters: @SJS_illini, @SamHouseholder, you know the drill.
We’ll see you live at 9:30 AM CT. Yes, we adjusted our clocks. Did you?