Chicago Bears v Green Bay Packers
GREEN BAY, WISCONSIN - OCTOBER 11: Head coach Ben Johnson of the Chicago Bears leaves the field after a loss against the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on October 11, 2026 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images) ORG XMIT: 776511758
Michael Reaves/Getty
SEATTLE — The Bears have been talking Super Bowl ever since the end of last season, and that got a bit louder last week when they traded for star defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons.
But before they get to all that, it’s going to be brutal surviving the NFC North.
As good as the Bears felt about standing 5-2 going into their game Monday night at the Seahawks, and rightfully so, that left them in third place in their own division and just inside the cut for the playoffs.
The Bears, of course, don’t believe they’re the third-best team in the division, and neither do the oddsmakers. Before their game against the defending champion Seahawks, the Bears had the sixth-best odds to win the Super Bowl at 12-to-1, while the Vikings were 10th, the Lions 13th and the Packers 15th.
Sportsbooks don’t decide the standings, but that’s a reasonable outlook on the future of the division rather than going off how it stands at the moment.
The other relatively safe forecast at this point is that it’s going to be an absolute battle over the final two months of the season.
The North was the only division in the NFL last season to have every team finish with a winning record and is tracking toward repeating that feat. In non-divisional games, the group was a collective 16-3 going into Monday.
There are no freebies in this division, and the Bears already lost what would figure to be their most favorable matchup, falling 9-3 to the Vikings at Soldier Field as quarterback Caleb Williams went down in Week 2. The Vikings are 6-1, and while the consensus is they won’t be able to sustain that level, they have the league’s No. 2 defense and had a lead over the Lions with five minutes left at Ford Field on Sunday before taking their first loss.
The Bears are in a hole at 0-2 in the North — the other loss was a blowout defeat at Lambeau Field with Tyson Bagent starting at quarterback — and will have to make up ground down the stretch. The Bears visit the Lions on Thanksgiving, then close the season hosting the Packers in Week 16 and Lions in Week 17, then visiting the Vikings.
Only two other teams, the Ravens and Falcons, finish with three consecutive division games.
The Bears managed to win the North last season despite going 2-4 in it, but they were the first team to do that since 2010 and the odds of pulling it off again are slim.
There will be minimal margin for the Bears given what a favorable draw the North received in the scheduling model this season. Every team is playing the entire NFC South (they’re 7-2 against that group so far) and AFC East (5-1).
They’ll also each face a team from the AFC South, where the Jaguars are the only one that isn’t a disaster. The Bears host them in Week 13, whereas everyone else in the North will play a team that’s currently 2-5 or worse.
It’s only going to get tougher, too, as the Packers expect to get star linebacker Micah Parsons back from a knee injury soon and the Lions and Vikings weigh whether to make big moves before the Nov. 10 trade deadline.
Winning the division is crucial to the Bears’ championship hopes because it would completely change their playoff path. After taking the North last season, they had two home playoff games, and had they and the 49ers reached the NFC Championship game instead of the Rams and Seahawks, that would’ve been at Soldier Field as well.
The visit to thunderous Lumen Field on Monday emphasized how important playing at home would be. Opponents don’t want to come here any more often than they have to.
The first question the Bears must answer is whether they’re truly better than the other three teams:
- They can claim that with the Packers on the grounds of beating them two out of three last season, including in the playoffs, and put a justifiable asterisk on the loss at Lambeau Field last month because they didn’t have Williams.
- They can’t make a peep when it comes to the Lions, who destroyed them early last season and clamped down on their offense at the end of it.
- They can shake off the early loss to the Vikings an anomaly, though they can’t dismiss how well defensive coordinator extraordinaire Brian Flores outmaneuvered Williams and coach Ben Johnson that day. He’s good enough to do it again.
They’ll get the chance to make definitive statements on all three fronts at the end of the season. It’s a near-certainty the North will be tight going into those last three weeks, and the Bears probably will need a sweep to come out on top.