Imrem: Bye just perfect for Chicago Bears
Since we can't make fun of the Chicago Cubs anymore, let's start back in on the Chicago Bears.
Congratulations to the Monsters for the infinite wisdom of not playing over the weekend.
The Bears would be undefeated if they were as smart at play-calling, drafting and other cerebral aspects of football.
They would be so good that Psychology Today would want to pick their brains and the Discovery Channel would want to profile their methods.
What did the Bears do to deserve such praise?
They took their bye Sunday, a decision worthy of a Nobel Prize in scheduling.
The Bears had no chance to look good this week in comparison to the Cubs' victory in the World Series.
Better for a 2-6 football team to lie low until the glow of the baseball season fades into winter.
To their credit, the Bears did win their most recent game, an upset of the Vikings on Halloween night.
For a change they went "Boo!" instead of being booed.
That victory lost luster Sunday when the Lions handed the Vikings their third straight defeat.
Still, when your record is 2-6, any victory is as big an upset as Bob Dylan receiving a Nobel Prize in literature.
The week off gave football experts time to run the numbers on the Bears' pursuit of the playoffs.
Counting swing states, uh, swing games, the Bears have zero-point-zero chance to advance to the playoffs as an NFC wild card.
Nfl.com asked their battery of expert jurors to predict playoff qualifiers.
Predictably, no one predicted the Bears would beat out the Packers or Vikings or Lions for the division championship.
Nor did any of the 15 predict that the Bears would sneak into the postseason as a wild card … except for one poor soul.
Adam Rank, obviously a fantasy-football specialist, tabbed the Bears to reach the playoffs as the NFC's second wild card.
At least he didn't guess that John Fox would win a Nobel Prize in media relations.
"LOOK," Rank wrote, "hear me out. HEAR ME OUT. Or read me out. Peep the schedule and winnable games for the Bears. The Bucs, Giants, 49ers, Lions, Packers and (Washington) get them to 8 wins. A split with Titans/Vikings should get them in at 9-7. A sweep obviously gets them in."
Sweep? Yeah, sure, the Bears really will beat the Packers and Clinton or Trump will win all 50 states.
Well, we snickered at the Cubs' odds to win the World Series when they trailed the Indians 3-1, didn't we?
Rank's rationale is similar to one that Chicago teams have invoked for a century, including by the Cubs until the past couple of seasons.
It goes like this: We can win this game because our opponent stinks, too. We can make those playoffs because everybody else stinks, too.
The point missed usually - and in this case specifically - is that opponents think they can win on that given Sunday because the Bears stink, too.
The schedule does favor the Bears during the second half of the season just as it did during their 2-6 first half.
Some believe that the Bears' defense is improving, the offense will click with Jay Cutler healthy, and the 2016 draft class is looking classy.
Some smart team, those Bears must be, at least until they get back on the field next week at Tampa.
Now that's enough fun at the Bears' expense for one day.
mimrem@dailyherald.com