Too early for Bears playoff talk? Oh, please — let's get right into it

Playoffs?

We’re talking about the playoffs?

Indeed, we are.

The Bears are 8-3 after a 31-28 win against the Steelers at Soldier Field, and do you know what 8-3 teams do? Yeah, yeah, they enjoy the latest “W” for five minutes, get some shuteye and then get down to the business of preparing for the next opponent. We get it, Ben Johnson and every NFL coach before you. It’s not even Thanksgiving yet. There’s still plenty of time for things to go wrong, not to mention a remaining schedule — beginning with a Black Friday game at the Super Bowl champion Eagles — that will test these Bears to the max.

But 8-3 teams go to the playoffs, and that’s just a fact.

Out of 345 teams in the Super Bowl era that have had at least eight wins through 11 games, 319 have made it through to the postseason. That’s 92%, people.

No one forced the Bears to be this successful so far, but here we are. Now, whether they’re ready to talk like it or not — and some of them are — they have cold, hard mathematical probability on their side. On that note, here’s a simple equation: Six games left + miss the playoffs = totally blowing it.

So here’s an idea, Bears: Don’t blow it.

Easy for the rest of us to say, isn’t it?

“Aw, it’s not fair yet, man,” wide receiver Rome Odunze said. “We’ve got six games more to go to put ourselves in position to go be in that race. We’ve got some good divisional opponents coming up. We’ve got Green Bay twice, got the Lions again.”

But a second pass at the topic pulled Odunze’s guard down, and why not? The Bears have won eight out of nine. This should be about as fun as it gets.

“Shoot,” he said, smiling, “I don’t see anything stopping us. We’ve got some games we’ve got to go handle, but I don’t think anything’s stopping us except ourselves.”

Nothing was stopping the 2023 Jaguars, either, but then they went from 8-3 into a four-game losing streak and, well: cough, cough, choke. Nor was anything stopping the 2012 Bears, who started 8-3 but missed the playoffs at 10-6, losing the division by a game to the Packers — who swept the season series — and leading to the dismissal of coach Lovie Smith. And not for nothing, the 2011 Bears started 7-3 but finished 8-8, their noses pressed to the wrong side of the glass as they watched the postseason party from the cold, cruel street.

So, yeah, the Bears still could blow this thing. Have you met the Bears? Of course it might go down like that.

But it shouldn’t. Any pretense that it should — the quarterback is still too young, the coach is still too new, the injuries are too many, the division is too hard, the schedule gets too mean and nasty — ought to be punted right into the frigid lake, right now.

Have we mentioned 92%?

“It’s still too early [to discuss], in my opinion,” safety Kevin Byard III said.

Another crack at it with him worked, too.

“Why not get to No. 1?” he said. “Why not be the No. 1 seed? That’s what we’re fighting for.”

They do seem to be fighting hard, week after week. Against the Steelers, cornerback Nahshon Wright intercepted Mason Rudolph’s first pass attempt, allowing the Bears to drive for a 7-0 lead. Later, two plays after drawing a foolish personal foul for taunting, receiver DJ Moore made up for it with a touchdown catch, his second of the day. Quarterback Caleb Williams made a terrible play, holding the ball too long and getting sacked and fumbling in the end zone for a Steelers touchdown, but then he came back with some of his best throws to tie the game. After running back D’Andre Swift fumbled near midfield, the Bears’ defense immediately picked him up with a fourth-down stop.

When things go wrong, isn’t all this what winning teams — playoff teams — do?

Why shouldn’t the Bears be in that picture?

“Sure, yeah, we should,” tight end Cole Kmet said. “We feel like we have enough pieces in here to get in.”

That’s more like it.

“It would be cool, man,” defensive lineman Gervon Dexter said. “It would be huge. Obviously, things in the past haven’t been what the city and what the fans deserve, but I think we’re giving them a little taste of what it could be like not just this year but for years to come.”

The ideal Sunday script would’ve had the Bears beating old nemesis Aaron Rodgers, but outlasting Rodgers’ team will have to do. Rodgers is yesterday’s news now, a 41-year-old who can’t honestly be counted on anymore and whose team is iffy at best to still be playing when it counts. For the Bears, winning at least once against the Packers and scratching out any other win — against anybody — is vastly more important.

We’re talking about the playoffs?

Sure. And while we’re at it, why not imagine a mid-January game right here on the lakefront? Goodness, it would be winter. How about some snow to go with it?

“It would be fun,” Odunze said.

That, it would be.

“It would be cold as [expletive],” he went on, “but it would be fun.”