Bears RB Montgomery playing at an elite level

And so we've come to the end of the journey, maybe.

The Bears need a win Sunday against the Green Bay Packers - a lofty proposition. Or they need the Los Angeles Rams to beat the Arizona Cardinals in a game that might not feature either team's starting quarterback.

What a ride it has been.

We're heading into Week 17 and the Bears are alive. For a while there, it didn't seem like they'd last this long.

So how'd they get here? A lot of reasons, but none bigger than David Montgomery.

Quite a run: With his 95 yards on 23 carries, Bears running back David Montgomery surpassed 1,000 rushing yards on the season. He currently has 1,001 rushing yards on 225 attempts.

He is the first Bears player to run for 1,000 yards since Jordan Howard in 2017. This is the first time since 2014 that the Bears have produced a 1,000-yard rusher and a 1,000-yard receiver in the same season. Receiver Alshon Jeffery (1,133 yards) and running back Matt Forte (1,038 yards) did it in the same season in 2014.

What's remarkable is that Montgomery has run for more than half of his yardage in the past five games. Since returning from a concussion for the Nov. 29 game against Green Bay, Montgomery has run for 529 yards and 6 touchdowns on 94 carries (5.6 yards per attempt).

Those five games coincide with when the Bears shuffled players around on the offensive line and fit Sam Mustipher into the starting center position. In those five games, Montgomery is averaging 105.8 rushing yards per game. Through the first nine games of the season, Montgomery was averaging just 52.4 yards per game.

"I'm happy for him," Bears running backs coach Charles London said. "It is a total team effort. Obviously, the line's doing a great job. We've had some continuity there the last few weeks, and that's really helped us in the run game."

Over the course of a 16-game season, 105.8 yards per game would equate to a 1,692-yard season. That would've led the modern-day, pass-happy NFL in rushing each of the previous five seasons from 2015 to 2019 (Tennessee's Derrick Henry has already surpassed that for the 2020 season).

There's a lot to be excited about with this recent success for the Bears' run game. Yes, the opponents have not been of the highest caliber. But results are results, and good NFL teams take care of business against subpar opponents. For the first time under head coach Matt Nagy, the Bears run game is doing that.

This season marks the 32nd 1,000-yard rushing season in Bears history. Just for a moment, let's say Montgomery hits that 105-yard average this week against Green Bay. That would put him at 1,106 yards for the season. That would be tied for the 22nd-best rushing season in the 101-year history of the Chicago Bears. It would be better than all but two of Matt Forte's best seasons with the Bears and better than all but one of Gale Sayers' seasons (which were only 14 games).

That, frankly, is a good season no matter how you look at it. Imagine what it would look like if the Bears could find this type of success running the football for a full season.

Fourth time's the charm: The Bears scored 30-plus points for the fourth game in a row. The organization hadn't accomplished that since 1965.

The 1965 Bears, with rookie running back Gale Sayers, scored 30 points from Week 4 through Week 7 of that season. They won all four games, including a 45-37 shootout against the Minnesota Vikings. That team finished 9-5 but missed the postseason.

If the Bears were to score 30 points this week against Green Bay, it would be the first time the organization has scored 30 points in five consecutive games since 1956. That team - quarterbacked by Ed Brown and led by fullback Rick Casares - scored 30 points or more in every game of a seven-game winning streak from Week 2 to Week 8.

TD trio: Mitch Trubisky, Montgomery and rookie running back Artavis Pierce each ran for a touchdown Sunday. The Bears hadn't had three players record a rushing touchdown in one game in more than a decade.

On Oct. 4, 2009, in a win over the Detroit Lions, Jay Cutler, Matt Forte and Garrett Wolfe each rushed for a touchdown. For Wolfe, a former third-team All-American running back at Northern Illinois, it marked his only NFL touchdown.

Fifth all-time: With 2 passing touchdowns Sunday, Trubisky surpassed Erik Kramer and Ed Brown (63 each) for fifth all-time in Bears history with 64 passing touchdowns. Jim McMahon (67) and Billy Wade (68) are directly ahead of him. Trubisky is a long way off from Sid Luckman (137) and Jay Cutler (154).

Streaky: Kicker Cairo Santos could break Robbie Gould's single-season team record for consecutive made field goals this weekend. With two more makes Sunday, Santos tied Gould's single-season record of 24 straight makes from the 2006 season.

Gould's overall streak stretched to 26 consecutive made field goals counting his last two makes of the 2005 season.

Santos is 27-for-29 (93.1%) on field goals this season. He could also become the first Bears kicker to make 90% of his field goals over the course of a full season, something not even Gould did.