Chicago Bears face another litmus test on Sunday

The Chicago Bears have more than just a playoff game on the line Sunday.

The Chicago Bears are approaching Sunday’s playoff game with the right mentality. Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky made it clear the Bears will play free because as he put it, everyone is overlooking the Bears and they have nothing to lose.

While that’s a wonderful sentiment, and probably the right one to have entering a very difficult matchup on the road against the New Orleans Saints, it probably isn’t accurate.

In fact, the Bears have a lot to lose on Sunday, most notably a chance to advance in the playoffs. However, beyond the game, this team, key members of the organization have a lot to lose — specifically their jobs.

Look, it’s great the Bears are playing a meaningful football game in January, but let’s not lose sight of the reality, which is they backed into this scenario. After starting 5-1 and being all but assured a playoff berth statistically, they lost six straight and needed the Los Angeles Rams to beat the Arizona Cardinals in Week 17 to get in because they couldn’t handle their own business.

That business they failed to handle, of course, was the Green Bay Packers who throttled them at Soldier Field. It was important because it was the first quality opponent (particularly defense) the team had played in weeks. After trouncing the bottom of the barrel (Houston Texans, Minnesota Vikings, and Jacksonville Jaguars) the offense was brought back down to earth with a impotent performance against the Pack.

So why is Sunday’s game important? Well, consider if they put forward a similar offensive performance. In that scenario, any goodwill the late season offensive surge built up would be gone. It would be further validation the offensive success was more fool’s gold. While George McCaskey might have been encouraged by that mini winning streak, the reality will be that they will have lost two consecutive games to quality opponents.

Prior to that, you’d have to go back to their first game against the Packers to find another quality opponent against which to evaluate this offense — and guess what — they bombed there too. So if you are looking at the season objectively, you’d have four good offensive performances (including the loss to the Detroit Lions) sandwiched in between three putrid performances against legitimate defenses.

If that happens, and George McCaskey is being honest with himself, he has to view this season as a failure, and a reality check that this team is closer to mediocrity than they are to the 12-4 anomaly of 2018.