Honestly, when the Bear's lined it up four weeks ago against the Jaguars, Bears fans knew it was a tall task for the Bears to win out to finish the season to have any hope of making the playoffs. However, after an easy win over the Jags and two overtime wins against the Saints and Packers the following two weeks, hope all of a sudden came back. Coming into the final week of the season the Bears, with a win againt 7-8 Houston, had to have either the Vikings lose, or have the Bucs lose to the Raiders at home and have the Cowboys lose to the Eagles for them to make the playoffs. Amidst all the talk of what all the other teams had to do, the Bears seemed to forget about the one thing they had to do... WIN! Although the Vikings went on to win their week 17 matchup, the Buccaneers did lose to the 4-11 Raiders and the Cowboys lost to Philadelphia. The Bears, however, could not keep up the end of the bargain and lost to the Texans 24-31. After leading 10-0 to start the game, the Bears fell apart as they have so many times and lost to the Texans by a greater margain than the score indicates. Set up by the most unlikely of circumstances, the Bears would have made the playoffs if they had simply won the game that they dominated the start of. A disappointing end to an average season.
