A Key Stat That All Prior Chicago Bears Playoff Teams Share

A Chicago Bears playoff run. That is the dream of every fan going into 2018. No surprise. It's something they haven't seen for almost a decade now. Amidst that drought, they've had to endure arguably the hardest run of seasons in Chicago football history. One teaming with a caliber of play they'd never seen before, and not in a good way. Thus they cling to the hope that maybe, just maybe this year can be different. So the question gets asked over and over. How can they do it? What must they do to reach the postseason? There are plenty of answers. Score more points. Force more turnovers. Control the clock better. Get off the field more consistently on third down. Yes, all of these things matter. Yet at the end of the day, there's one answer:  win more games. That sounds too simple though. So here's an interesting stat I dug up looking back over the Bears' history during the Super Bowl era. Dating back to 1977, Chicago has never made the playoffs without posting at least one three-game winning streak during the course of the season.

Chicago Bears haven't escaped losing season since fulfilling that stat

Okay, it may sound a little convoluted but sometimes that's just how things are in the NFL. If Bears fans really want to feel where the state of their team is, they merely need to follow this stat. From 2014 through 2017, the Bears have not once managed a three-game win streak. For those who don't care to do the calculations, that's a span of 64 games without being able to win three-in-a-row. The last time they accomplished this feat? It was in 2013, the last season they didn't have a losing record. It came during the first three games of the Marc Trestman tenure, culminating in a 40-23 rout of the Steelers in Pittsburgh. [video width="1280" height="720" mp4="https://www.sportsmockery.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Earl-Bennett-Steelers.mp4"][/video] The Bears came close to finally pulling it off last season. Sadly their best chance ended in failure with a 20-12 loss to the Saints in New Orleans right before the bye week. Most would agree that was the game that killed their momentum, sparked by the disastrously bad call by refs to overturn an obvious touchdown by tight end Zach Miller. Thus the question arises. Do the 2018 Bears have a three-game win streak in them? It sounds like such a modest achievement compared to what other teams have done lately. Still, the saying goes you have to learn to crawl before you can walk. If they can find a trio of wins somewhere in that schedule, it can be considered them taking their first step as a big boy team again. From there, as history shows, anything is possible.