The Bears' Second Quarter: Can you believe we're still talking playoffs?

Just as it seemed we were surely on our way to seeing the team go into the midway point in their season at the .500 mark, like I had predicted in the last quarterly update and every single writer at the Chicago Tribune had them pegged as becoming when they certainly fell to the Philadelphia Eagles, the Bears instead went and did what seemingly every other Philly opponent has done all year and left you wondering how that team was so favored to get to the Super Bowl. Boy, am I glad I picked the Saints.

So instead of being 4-4 after eight games, the Bears have a winning record and have numerous factors going their way now in terms of possible playoff tiebreakers. Consider now some of the names on the list of opponents the Bears have victories over this season: Philadelphia, Atlanta, Tampa Bay. Other than a Dallas or New York team that doesn't win the division, the Bears would have tiebreakers over a number of teams that could finish with an identical record.

Now, as far as what happens if the Bears get into the playoffs ... well, who's to say, really? The victory over Philadelphia seemed to create a little more confidence in believers as well as win over a number of nationwide observers who had been sitting on the fence about the the Bears' chances. Once you get past the wins, you notice that the losses have come to far more capable football teams. And if the Monsters of the Midway can't start giving more of a challenge to the upper-tier teams, there's every reason to be skeptical that they'll be able to get one playoff win, let alone get back to the NFC Championship and go to a Super Bowl.

So the Bears now get a big game at home with the Lions before getting four straight weeks with AFC West opponents. I would say it will be a decreasing level of difficulty, but part of me is now thinking the Raiders could be a bigger challenge than the Chargers. There will almost certainly be a speed bump somewhere in between now and the Christmas evening game in Green Bay that will likely go a long way toward determining just how seriously we should take these Bears going into any playoffs.

Realistically, seven of these eight remaining games seem winnable, but I'm thinking the Bears finish could very much be more along the lines of 10-6. The offensive line has once again been playing better and the defense one might have feared had been figured out by a majority of the NFL still might have some real life to it.

I still question  what kind of success we could really expect these Bears to have in the postseason, but it seems reasonable to assume that at the very least this team will be in the playoff discussion for the rest of the year.