Bears Playoff Chances with 5 weeks to go...

For years I’ve been interested, around this time of year, in what the Bears playoff chances were.  In the past, I’ve used the site www.coolstandings.com, which currently gives the Bears a 43.4% chance of winning their division and a 64.8% chance of winning their division.  This year, I also found a site called makenflplayoffs.com which gives the Bears a 69% chance of winning their division and an 82% chance of making the playoffs (can you guess which site I like more?).  However, I found what is referred to as “the Playoff Machine” on espn.com, and for lack of a better term, it is really cool.  Instead of using complicated formulas/simulations and spitting a number out at you, it allows you to pick every game, for every team, for the remainder of the year and then tells you who will be in the playoffs, and what seed they will be, when the playoffs begin.  The Playoff Machine also allows you to see what will happen if games end the way they are supposed to for the rest of the year (i.e. the team with the better winning percentage wins every game).  I’ve taken some scenarios, so you don’t have to, and listed them below:

• If all games are won by the team with the better winning percentage, the Bears would be the 3rd seed and would host the New York Giants in the first round of the playoffs.
• If all games are won by the home team, the Bears would finish 10-6 and miss the playoffs.
• If all games are won by the team ranked higher in ESPN’s Power Rankings, the Bears would be the 3rd seed and would host the Green Bay Packers in the first round of the playoffs.
• If all games were won by the team with the better offensive rank, the Bears would (not surprisingly) not win another game and miss the playoffs.
• If all games were won by the team with the better defensive rank, the Bears would be the third seed and would host the Atlanta Falcons in the first round of the playoffs.
• Finally, if the games go the way I think they will the rest of the way (Bears beat Detroit, Minnesota, NY Jets and lose to New England and Green Bay) and all other games go according to who has the higher winning percentage right now, the Bears will be the 3rd seed and host the Giants.

Related posts:

1. Still hopeful!
2. From the Cellar: Lions need to follow Vikings lead…
3. Bears Sprint Out to a 4-1 start. What does it mean?
4. Legitimacy calls…Bears ready to answer?
5. The Chilly Report Week 3, 2010: Vikings vs. Lions (and Bears vs. Packers)

Tags: Bears, Lions, Playoffs

This entry was posted on December 2, 2010 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Bears/Lions, Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Rivalry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.