Lots of changes from year to year in the NFL. New players are making an impact, new teams are making the playoffs, and new coaches are making their mark. There are always your perennial contenders, such as the Chiefs, Bills and Eagles, and likewise, many NFL franchises are conditioned to losing.

Unfortunately, Chicago Bear fans know which category their favorite team belongs to. The Midway Monsters haven’t lived up to their nickname in a long time, and yet this season seems worse. The Bears had real expectations this year after a slew of offseason moves, including drafting Caleb Williams and Rome Odunze, trading for Keenan Allen, and signing D’Andre Swift. However, little has gone as planned, and after firing head coach Matt Eberflus and then getting beaten on Sunday by the San Francisco 49ers, the Bears may have hit a new low.

We tried to find some glimmers of hope yesterday, but it’s not an optimistic moment for fans of one of the NFL’s charter franchises. Bears fans see the joy shown by other fans around the league when they win games and clinch playoff spots. Even within the NFC North, the Detroit Lions have gone from league laughing stock to certified juggernaut. Is it too much to ask for a little of this happiness for ourselves?

Lions fans have been rewarded for enduring decades of putrescence, and Bears fans are hoping their time comes soon, too. But for now, there’s not much to do except wait until next year. The Bears are 4-9 and already in last place in the division, they need to hire a new head coach (and maybe a new general manager?), and there are glaring needs on both sides of the ball. ball.

A national television audience will be subject to the Bears in Week 15, as the team travels to Minnesota to face the Vikings on Monday Night Football. This is bad news for football fans in general, and worse news for Bears fans who now have an extra day to talk about how bad everything has gone this season.

I wish we could approach our news of the week on a higher note, but that’s the sad reality for Bears fans right now. We’re definitely not having a good time, but that’s okay because we’re hopeful that one day it will all be worth it.

If there’s one positive to come out of the 49ers blowout, it’s that it forced everyone in the organization to take responsibility. The Bears and their fans have been able to place blame for weeks now, first on former offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, then on Eberflus. The team’s problems clearly run deeper.

If anyone thought firing Eberflus would be the panacea to cure all that ailed the Bears, they were quickly proven wrong on Sunday. The 49ers stomped on the Bears early on, racing out to a 24-0 halftime lead, which was even worse in light of the 319-4 yardage disparity in the first half. Yes, you read that right.

Interim head coach Thomas Brown preached the importance of playing with physicality in the week leading up to the game, but the Bears were pushed around all afternoon at Levi’s Stadium. After the game, Brown had no choice but to admit, “We got our butts kicked.”

Caleb Williams was sacked seven times during the game, and he expressed the same sentiment in a slightly harsher tone, saying, “We got our ass kicked today and there’s no way around it that.”

Montez Sweat acknowledged that the only way the Bears can play better is by working and playing as a team. “No one will save us,” he said. “We are grown men.”

The Bears’ postgame locker room had a surprisingly different vibe than that given off by some players following Eberflus’ firing. Sunday was a humbling experience and the best proof yet that instead of pointing the finger at others, the Bears should have pointed the finger at themselves.

Brown met with reporters virtually Monday, and while he acknowledged that everyone from the coaches to the players could have been better in last week’s loss, he also made it clear that he expects what the team improves in the future, stating: “We don’t have cowards in the locker room. We have no cowards in our coaching staff and therefore, whatever the circumstances, we will fight every day. We’ll see if that translates into a better effort Monday night.

Sunday’s game was the seventh straight loss for the Bears, a truly shocking development considering the team was 4-2 and a well-defended Hail Mary of being 5-2. The team never fully recovered from the shock of that loss to the Commanders and now has the third-longest active losing streak in the NFL, behind the Raiders (nine games) and Giants (eight games).

It may sound like the end of the world to Bears fans, but it wasn’t long ago that the team set the franchise record for consecutive losses with a whopping 14 in a row from 2022 to 2023. This streak has spanned two seasons, and if this team wants to match that number, they will have to lose their last four games of this season and the first three next year.

We don’t yet know what next season’s schedule will look like, but that scenario isn’t as unlikely as it seems thanks to a brutal end to the season. The Bears’ last four opponents have a combined record of 40-12, and all four would be in the playoffs if the season ended today.

The Bears are the underdogs to the Vikings this week and will certainly be big dogs against the Lions and Packers. Even if they host the Seahawks in Week 17, Seattle will almost surely be favored in this game as well due to how well they have been playing as of late.

If the Bears don’t find a way to beat the Vikings on Monday night, they will be tied for the second-longest losing streak in franchise history. Lose to the Lions again the following week and they will have second place to themselves.

For Bears fans already turning their attention to next year’s draft (and who could blame them), there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the Bears are the only 4-9 team in the NFL, so they I currently have the ninth choice.. The bad news is that Chicago is on the wrong side of the tiebreaker against literally every team in the league, meaning that if the Bears finish with the same record as another team, the Bears will have the worst pick.

It seems likely at this point that the Bears won’t win another game this season, or maybe one at most. Losing would be a good thing from the perspective of the ninth being the worst pick the Bears could then have. However, going higher will require a bit of luck.

The Patriots, Panthers, Jaguars, Titans, Jets and Browns are all 3-10, but since the Bears have and will have the toughest strength of schedule, they will need these teams to win at least two games to have a chance of advancing. in the draft order.

It’s a diverse group, but a few of these teams have shown signs of life. The Patriots like what they’ve seen from rookie Drake Maye, and they’ll be fresh off their bye when they travel to Arizona to face the suddenly hapless Cardinals. The final three weeks of New England’s schedule, however, feature two games with the Bills and one with the Chargers, so two wins seem extremely unlikely.

The Panthers have looked much better in recent weeks as Bryce Young finally showed signs of life. They almost beat the Eagles last week, and their closing schedule at home against the Cowboys and Cardinals and against the Bucs and Falcons is very reasonable. Bears fans should still root against Carolina, as they hold the Panthers’ second-round pick and want it as high as possible.

The Jaguars have the easiest remaining schedule in the league, but they’re so bad it might not matter. Trevor Lawrence is out for the year and Mac Jones has led the team to 43 combined points over the last four games. Can they beat two of the Jets, Raiders, Titans and Colts? Maybe, but man, these are going to be some ugly games.

The Titans lost to the Jaguars on Sunday, so there doesn’t appear to be much hope of them picking up two more wins, even against a relatively weak slate of remaining opponents in the Bengals, Colts, Jags and Texans . Same for the Jets, who continue to find new ways to lose and still have to face the Rams, Bills and Dolphins after facing the Jags this week.

The Browns have been fiery since Jameis Winston took over, but that hasn’t translated much in the win column. They bring the Chiefs, Bengals, Dolphins and Ravens to finish the year. I don’t see two wins there.

If the Bears can win another game, there’s no way they can hope to get past any of these teams, and they would risk falling behind the five-win Saints, Bengals and Cowboys.

We’re going to predict the Bears lose, and one of the three-win teams claws its way to a few wins thanks to a team that rested its starters in Week 18, giving the Bears the eighth pick.