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Good morning. Last week the division cooperated, and the Bears’ critical fumbles against the Giants turned into sighs of relief. As every team lost, the Bears’ situation to clinch the NFC North stays the same: Up 1.5 in the division, needing three “positive outcomes” (Bears wins, Vikings losses) out of eight remaining.
Tonight’s game is one heck of a first game of that stretch.
The Bears welcome the Rams into Soldier Field tonight and, well, I admit that out of habit I started typing “St. Louis,” but that doesn’t make the Rams any less dangerous. After all they’re 11-1, a probable first-seed in the NFC... ya know, as the kids say these days, “pretty good.” As good as the Bears’ offense has been, with the team scoring almost 29 points per game (5th in NFL), the Rams are at 2nd with 34 points per game and have only been held below 30 points twice this season. And for the Bears being 5th in the NFL at allowing 20 points per game, the 19th-ranked Rams are at 24 points... effectively the same difference.
This will be the Navy and Orange’s toughest game all season, and that’s being said with two division games yet on the radar. And it comes at a critical stretch for the Bears to close out the season. At least the squad gets a boon with the return of Mitch Trubisky. Chase Daniel got the Bears one win and very nearly stole a second, but it’s time for Mitch to take back his throne.
The Bears need three positive outcomes in the final four weeks of the season. This would be a fantastic first one to pick up.
Bear Down, my friends.
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Today’s WCG Sunday Livestream brings a return to normalcy... or does it?! We’re joined by Robert today; with the biggest game of the season thus far on the schedule, we make the biggest Livestream splash by bringing in more of the best football writers from the best Bears blog on the planet... and of course that means the Madden gets exponentially worse, clearly.
If you want to get in on the discussion today, the ways to do that as usual are:
- Here. This comment thread. Look down. Stop. Collaborate and start typing.
- Our Twitch is back with a brand new addition: Over at SJS_illini.
- I’m out of Ice lyrics: Twitters at SJS_illini, SamHouseholder, robertzeglinski, WCGridiron
We’ll be live at 9:30 AM CT; see y’all then...