Following their Week 13 win over the Philadelphia Eagles, the Chicago Bears had a hold on the No. 1 seed in the NFC and were atop the NFC North. But one loss to the Green Bay Packers in Week 14 knocked them all the way down to the seventh seed in the conference.
After the two teams flipped their results a week later, Chicago now stands as the No. 2 seed while Green Bay is at No. 7, meaning no matter what happens in Week 16, there could be plenty of shuffling over the remainder of the regular season.
No matter how you spin it, both the NFC and AFC playoff races are going to come down to the wire, with the schedule makers lining it up perfectly for the final weeks of the regular season to matter. Bears head coach Ben Johnson kept it short and sweet when asked about the playoff race, and he has recognized that nothing is going to be handed to his team this season.
“It’s going to come down to the wire here it seems like in the AFC and NFC,” Johnson said. “I’ve been saying it all along. We’ve got to continue to win. We’ve got to earn that right to make it into the postseason.”
Currently, six of the seven teams in the NFC playoffs have at least nine wins on the year, except for the NFC South leaders, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are 7-7 this season. Tampa Bay is locked in a battle against the Carolina Panthers, and whoever comes out on top in their head-to-head matchups is likely to be the lone team in the division to make the playoffs. As it stands entering Week 16, the NFC West division would have three teams represented in the playoffs, while the NFC North would see the Bears and Packers both make it if the postseason started today.
The race is far from over, and Johnson’s message to his team is to just keep winning and taking their approach one week at a time. And if Chicago takes care of business this weekend, with a little help, they could lock down a playoff spot as early as this week.
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This article originally appeared on Bears Wire: Ben Johnson had straightforward comments on the Bears and playoff race
