Chicago Bears: Pivoting from being hunters to being hunted

Sitting on top of the NFC North this late in the season, the Chicago Bears move from the hunters to being hunted. They must learn how to handle that difference.

This has been a wonderful season — after many experts expected the Chicago Bears to have another losing season. Some expected them to be a little better than the 5-11 version of last season, but no one expected them with an 8-3 record, sitting atop the NFC North and third overall in the NFC.

That is the case, however. The Bears are among the best teams in the league. In addition, they are the most fun team in the NFL. Their in-game celebrations are going viral. After years of losing, things are nice again.

Maybe it’s all the horrible seasons that the Bears went through that still has me worried. They wouldn’t be the first time the bottom falls out on a team that was winning. Take the 2009 Denver Broncos, for example. They started out 6-0 and had high hopes. After their bye week, however, they went 2-8 to finish a disappointing 8-8.

At the start of the season, the Chicago Bears were hunting teams. They wanted to show they were among the best and played like it. Attention was slow to come, though. As they kept on winning, the national media pays more attention.

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After back-to-back wins in front of a national audience (Week 11 against the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday night and Week 12 against the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving with a backup quarterback), something changed. Great defensive play and a high-powered offense, along with viral celebrations, made the Bears popular again.

With all the newfound attention and popularity, the Bears need to be careful. They cannot allow the success get to their heads. This is a young team and young teams sometimes get too high and too low. They can be riding high when some bad plays hit them. They need to forget it and not let it affect the rest of the game.

On the other hand, when you start winning things can get crazy. Everyone treats you like a god. Everyone tells you how great you are and how the Super Bowl is on the horizon. Of course, football players in Chicago are always treated great anyway, but as we’ve seen from the 1985 Chicago Bears, winning a Super Bowl puts them on another stratosphere.

What we also know from that team is how the popularity kept them from achieving more. That team could have won multiple titles. This team is just learning how to win.

The Bears need to play as if they have a target on their backs. They are the leaders in the division, and the teams following them, such as the Vikings and the Green Bay Packers, are looking to knock them off the perch. The Bears still have a game against both those teams. Their opponent this week, the New York Giants, are 3-8 but are looking to play the role of spoilers.

Additionally, the Bears have now attracted the attention of the 10-1 Los Angeles Rams. The game is big enough now that the NFL flexed the game to Sunday night, another national game for the Bears.

This is the situation for the Bears now — the weak teams are looking to make an impression and the powerhouse teams want to see how good they really are. The Bears need to set aside whatever anyone is saying, good or bad, and take care of business.