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Good morning. Week 1 seems forever ago.
The last 14 weeks haven’t been easy - not only losing to their rivals to the north in a defensive slugfest, but while the Bears were scuffling along mired in an outright refusal to score points, the Packers racked up a solid ten wins and sit on the brink of clinching a playoff berth themselves, with an opportunity to end the Bears’ season.
Stop me if this scenario sounds familiar.
If it’s any consolation, the Packers have been an enigma themselves. Sometimes the offense looks fine and Aaron Rodgers does his thing, sometimes they look remarkably out of sync and the defense steps things up. And sometimes it’s Bears/Packers week and all the numbers get thrown out the window.
The Navy and Orange are fighting to keep their marginally-slim playoff hopes alive. An awful lot needs to go right for the Bears to make the playoffs and it starts with them winning out. But the Bears have questions of their own. Is Mitch Trubisky’s turnaround showing real, sustainable growth, or is it a product of Trubisky being a man defense killer, bad defense killer, and beating a limping-to-the-finish Cowboys? Does the defense have one more gear in it with Akiem Hicks making his return, or is there just too much to make up?
Or can the Bears continue to resemble the team that Bears fans thought they were getting to enter the season?
Bears/Packers is a great way to find out. Bear Down, my friends.
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This week’s WCG Sunday Livestream got sick of being sick, so before the gap gets any wider, we’re back!
Three games to dive into, including taking down the Lions a second time and the best offensive performance of the year against Dallas.
If you want to get in touch with us during the stream, there are several ways to do that:
- You can comment right here, in this comment thread.
- Chat over on our Twitch side, over at SJS_illini
- And of course our Twitters exist. For the entire WCG Sunday Livestream crew, I’m at @SJS_illini; Sam’s at @SamHouseholder; Jeff’s at @gridironborn; and the main handle is @WCGridiron.
We’ll be live at about 9:30 AM CT. See you then.