Bears: Rams’ blowout loss to Ravens boosts playoff chances

At this point, the Chicago Bears are taking it inch by inch in terms of their glimmer of playoff hopes. They were helped out a bit on Monday night.

Most of us grew up hating math. A lot of us, as kids, hated everything about math. One of the things which was almost pointless to the majority of kids was the subject of probability. It all seemed pointless — until now, if you’re a fan of the Chicago Bears.

The great people over at The New York Times created a fun — yes, fun — algorithm which simulates the rest of the season while allowing you to manually pick winners for specific teams. As of right now, the Bears have a good shot at making the postseason if they win every remaining game of the season — 56 percent to be exact.

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. The likelihood of the Bears beating the Cowboys, Chiefs, Packers and Vikings is not good — and that’s putting it nicely. But, all that aside, it’s nice to still have hope.

Monday night, the Los Angeles Rams received a beatdown at the hand of Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens. Now sitting at 6-5, the Rams are still the first team out of the NFC Playoffs if they started today.

In the Wild Card, as of now, are the Minnesota Vikings (8-3) and Seattle Seahawks (9-2). In the craziest of scenarios, the Bears would get in if they finished 10-6, the Rams finished 9-7 or worse, and one of the following happens:

• The Vikings lose three of their last five, finishing 10-6 with the Bears owning the tiebreaker, or…
• The Seahawks lose their last five games (the first of which is against those Vikings next week in prime time)

With all of that happening, that means we are still banking on the fact that neither the Eagles (5-6) nor Panthers (5-6) finish the season valiantly. We’re also banking on the assumption that the Packers remain atop the NFC North and win the division.

For now, the Bears are simply aided by the single Rams loss last night, and sit a game behind Los Angeles in the playoff hunt. It’s a tiny, tiny glimmer of hope. But, it’s there, and we’ll hold onto it as long as we possibly can as fans, right?