Five games remain for each of the teams battling to win the NFC North and earn a place in the tournament. Five games. So let’s take a look at them.

CHICAGO BEARS (6-5)

At Minnesota, home Dallas (Mon), at Cleveland, at Philly, home Green Bay

DETROIT LIONS  (6-5)

Home Green Bay, at Philly, home Baltimore, home New York Giants, at Minnesota

GREEN BAY PACKERS (5-5-1)

At Detroit, home Atlanta, at Dallas, home Pittsburgh, at Chicago

SO…?

After looking at those fifteen games, how is it possible to argue Bears fans should be rooting for the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving?

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Does Sunday’s loss to the St. Louis Rams really warrant a rapid fire recap? Do the folks who read this site daily not understand that Chris Conte takes terrible angles to running backs, Josh McCown is a wonderful caretaker for the offense, Julius Peppers plays well every other week, blah blah blah? Do I really need to take each member of the Bears defense to task for being who they are when most of them have less than two months remaining in a Bears uniform? My opinion on the Bears defense and the entirety of the Bears loss Sunday was summed up in two of my Tweets:

Bears fans. Ask yourself how many defenders on the unit are good. Not how many can be good or used to be. How many defenders today are good?

Sad fact: answer might be one. Tim Jennings.

Blaming Mel Tucker is silly. Bears are not being out-coached on the defensive side of the ball. They are being beaten in every single one-on-one match-up. And there’s a very simple reason. They’re not talented.

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No chat this week as I’m attempting to work out some kinks.

If you read my game preview closely you know I think this is a terrible match-up for the Bears defense. They have one goal today: get out of St. Louis with a victory. No style points needed. 9-6 is fine. 44-43 is fine. Just win, baby. If you have some time pregame, here’s my spot on 1490 the Jock Thursday night.

Run the ball and stop the run. That’s what we were told makes successful football teams for the majority of my life. Run the ball and stop the run. Well after ten games the Bears are the 18th best rushing team in the league and only the Jacksonville Jaguars are worse at defending the run. (This is almost unfair being that Jacksonville has a points differential of -189 and teams are basically running at them non-stop from the middle of the third quarter on.)

Where does this mediocre rushing attack/awful rush defense currently sit? Of course! They’re tied for first place! So why do I like the Chicago Bears this week?

I always like the Chicago Bears.

BUT WHAT FOOTBALL REASONS, JEFF?

• The NFL now ranks the Bears as the 9th best offense in terms of yardage and the Aikman Efficiency Rankings have them 8th. So now matter what numbers you’re looking at the Bears are a top 10 offense in the sport. If Bears fans had been told in August the team would be ravaged by injury on defense and play Josh McCown for two and a half of the first ten games and STILL be tied for first place in the division…how hard would the laughter be? That’s how impressive a first year this has been for head coach Marc Trestman.

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NOTE: RICH COHEN WILL BE APPEARING AT OUR CHARITY EVENT WITH OTIS WILSON ON SUNDAY NIGHT, DECEMBER 8TH AND RAFFLING OFF BOOKS. PLEASE COME OUT AND SUPPORT THIS WORTHY CAUSE. FULL DETAILS ARE AVAILABLE BY CLICKING HERE.

Rich Cohen’s Monsters: The 1985 Chicago Bears and the Wild Heart of Football is one of the best sports book I’ve ever read. It is not only the story of the Bears in the time surrounding their only Super Bowl title. It is the tracing of a man’s descent in the madness of fandom. Not to sound like a cliche but every single person who reads this site more than likely has a relative who would love this book as a holiday gift. I don’t vouch for many books on here. I can’t vouch enough for this one.

To purchase the book from Amazon, CLICK HERE.

Here’s my discussion with Rich. It is the most fun I’ve ever had doing one of these podcasts.

Before we completely turn our attention to the St. Louis Rams, a few additional thoughts on the Bears defense after a re-watch of the ballgame. Here’s one sentence on every guy.

ZACK BOWMAN

Bowman is not the best coverage corner around but Sunday he displayed the secondary’s best closing speed to the ball and surest tackling.

JON BOSTIC

Bostic is a sideline-to-sideline monster who can cover the deep middle but his major flaw as a young player is an inability to shed blocks.

CHRIS CONTE

Baltimore ran the ball on two of their final three plays in regulation and both of those runs were stopped due primarily to the efforts of Conte. He is starting to piece together something of a coherent safety. I’d also add that Conte had PERFECT coverage on Dallas Clark when Clark converted fourth-and-four with three minutes to go in regulation. Clark’s special catch prevented Conte from being celebrated as a hero.

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