Hub Arkush: Let's call Chicago Bears regular season a B-minus

At this point, there is little value in my weekly grading of Sunday's Bears-Packers game tape by position.

A return to the tape of their Week 8 overtime 26-23 loss to the New Orleans Saints makes a lot more sense, and we'll get there beginning Wednesday.

Pretty much everything about the loss to Green Bay, much like this entire season, was a B-minus.

Fourteen teams are in the playoffs and 18 are not. The Bears might be No. 14, but that's still a B-minus or C-plus for almost any curve you grade on.

It's a B-minus from me because they played some of their best football at the end and did, in fact, earn their playoff trip. no one changed the rules to let them in.

The offense dominated the clock Sunday. It won the physical battle, and the ground game worked again. The Bears were good on third down and very good on fourth down, and they matched or outdid the Packers in almost every category except turnovers and points on the board.

Of course, turnovers and points on the board are the two most important categories. The one fourth down they couldn't convert was for the most part the dagger, and their failures in the red zone were the reason they lost.

The defense held the Packers' offense well below its season averages in almost every category except turnovers, failing to convert three less than difficult interception chances. With 11 minutes to play, the Bears had the Packers right where they wanted them.

But in those final 11 minutes, they allowed the 14 points that put the game away and suddenly couldn't get Aaron Rodgers and company off the field.

Special teams probably earned the B without a minus for the game's only takeaway, more perfection from kicker Cairo Santos and very good work in coverage.

Coaching? The game plan was excellent, practically the only way to beat Rodgers and executed to near perfection for 50 minutes or so, lacking only the pressure on the quarterback necessary to seal the deal.

The Bears had their guys ready.

But the play call on that failed fourth-and-one was uniquely awful, and certain blitz and coverage designs that left linebackers in man coverage on Davante Adams, Aaron Jones and Marquez Valdes-Scantling too often got them beat.

The grade for the Packers game is a B-minus because there actually was as much good as bad, coming against the NFC's best team.

So what is Bears ownership to do about the leadership - general manager, head coach and quarterback - of its marginally, if at all, better than average team?

Obviously nothing was going to happen on "Black Monday" as they begin preparations for the playoffs.

Asked if he had been assured he would be sticking around, coach Matt Nagy said: "My conversations that I have with George (McCaskey) and with Ted (Phillips) and with Ryan (Pace), we stay in constant communication. That's where they're at right now.

"I haven't gotten into any discussions with that, which for us right now where we're at, that's not a focus.

"We were trying like heck to do everything we could to do whatever we could to have a chance to get into the dance in the playoffs, and our players and our coaches did that any way you look at it.

"And it's great that we made it two out of three years.

"There are a lot of other teams right now who are trying to figure out their flights home today and where they're going. And we're not."

Big, small or any size at all, what part of what Nagy said isn't true?

Going to the playoffs for the second time in three seasons almost never gets general managers or coaches fired, but going at 8-8 certainly adds a different wrinkle.

The question McCaskey must now decide is are his Bears close to competing for playoff wins with the right handful of strategic changes, or are they far enough away that it would be better to start over?

Change just to satisfy some disappointed fans is not the answer, and the regular season didn't really answer the question either.

If McCaskey's mind isn't already made up, there could still be a lot more at stake in the playoffs than the sudden death it always brings for all but one.

• Twitter: @Hub_Arkush