The NFL season is about halfway over, and the Chicago Bears are a surprising 5-3, which is what I predicted them to be at this point of the season. I'm 6 and 2 in my predictions. The Bears could conceivably be 7-1 were it not for the meltdown in the season opener and the anemic offense against Baltimore. They could also be a lot worse because three of those wins could have easily gone the other way. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
What's important is that after a 0-2 start, the Bears won four in a row, before choking against the Ravens. Yesterday, they made it up with a nailbiter against the Bengals that should not have been that close.
If the Bears can go .500 the rest of the season that would be 9-8 or even 10-7 which I think could earn them a Wild Card. The division isn't off the table yet, but they probably need to win at least three of the four remaining division games and get a little help.
For their next four games, I predicted the following:
As always, I'm sticking with my predictions, but I'll be very happy to be wrong on two of these. These are not weak teams. And the Giants won't want to lose a fourth game if they can help it. The Bears' secondary has to get healthy fast.
It will depend on which Vikings team shows up in two weeks. Hopefully it's the bad one.
The Philadelphia teams are the strongest, but even they are showing some cracks in their armor.
The Bears have played eight games, and I was able to watch 4 of them. Three of the next four are Sunday nooners, with the Eagles game being on the Friday after Thanksgiving. I should be in Illinois, headed toward Chicago, and be able to catch some of the game against the Steelers. As for the Friday game, it's at 2 pm, which is prime in the middle of our last full day in town.
