Bears: Lions offer last opportunity to get right

With the Chicago Bears’ upcoming schedule, they need to get back on track against the Detroit Lions.

If you are a true believer, you are no doubt holding out hope that the Chicago Bears still have a shot at making the playoffs. They currently sit at 5-6 in the eighth spot in the NFC, two spots out of the final wild-card position, behind the Los Angeles Rams (6-5) and Minnesota Vikings (8-3).

They are admittedly a long shot to make the playoffs, however, all they can do is take care of the business in front of them and hope the Rams and Vikings trip up down the stretch.

However, it’s the business in front of them that projects to be a real problem. After this week, they will host the Dallas Cowboys, followed by the Green Bay Packers on the road, before closing the season out with a home game against the Kansas City Chiefs and the season finale in Minnesota.

Which brings us to the immediate future and their opponent on Thanksgiving Day — the Detroit Lions. Let’s be honest for a second — the Bears offense has been bad — like really bad. They are one of the worst unit’s in the entire league. Perhaps the only thing worse than the Bears offense has been the Lions’ defense over the last several weeks.

In fact, since Week 7, their passing defense has been absolutely abysmal. Prior to that, they held Phillip Rivers, Carson Wentz, Patrick Mahomes, and Aaron Rodgers to passer ratings of 72.3, 93.1, 81.0, and 89.4 respectively.

Since Week 7, they have yielded passer ratings of 141.4, 121.0, 114.9, 125.9, 115.7 to the likes of Kirk Cousins, Daniel Jones, Derek Carr, Mitch Trubisky and Dak Prescott respectively. Trubisky has had some of the best games of his career against the Lions, and he, along with the rest of the offense, will need to have another one on Thursday afternoon.

All season the defense has held up its end of the bargain and has performed to the level expected. They are one of the most dominant defenses in the league despite not forcing as many turnovers as they did last season and playing with an offense that does them no favors.

If the team wants to make a run at a playoff berth, then the offense needs to do their part. Thursday may offer the last chance for them to get “right” as their last four games are against difficult opponents who have the ability to put up a lot of points. Three of their final four opponents rank in the top eight in points per game. In other words, the offense will not be able to figure things out on the fly. Anyone of those final games could become a shootout and the Bears need to have their offense ironed out before then.