Chicago Bears are having a schedule prediction contest

The Chicago Bears have announced an NFL schedule prediction contest with a retail value of $19,680 for the grand prize.

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It’s not like it’s a completely new concept as the Rams did something similar last year. They asked fans to pick each game and place it on the correct day, in order, as well as the placement of the bye week. The prize for getting it all correct? A cool $100,000. Unfortunately, no one had the correct forecasting skills and the prize went unclaimed.

So the Bears are running the same contest this year, but the prize is two tickets to all home and away games, along with airfare, lodging and walk-around money, according to Pro Football Talk.

That seems like a lot, but the retail value is just under $20,000, not even close to the $100,000 offered by the Rams. However, the Bears do have one addendum that might help the odds. They aren’t requiring that the picks identify the exact day of the game, but rather the weekend the game will be played. The second place prize is worth $2,600.

The contest still has long odds, but each entrant is allowed to submit five different sets of picks, so it’s possible someone will get lucky and get it right. Because that’s really what it is, is luck. There’s no formula for how the league decides to set schedules, no patterns to follow. If there was, someone probably would have figured it out for the Rams contest.

The Bears opponents for 2015 are as follows:

Home: Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota, Arizona, San Francisco, Denver, Oakland, Washington
Away: Detroit, Green Bay, Minnesota, St. Louis, Seattle, Kansas City, San Diego, Tampa Bay

The official schedule will be released later in April and the official rules of the Bears contest as listed on the website, says that the contest will end on April 13th or 24 hours before the schedule is released. If the schedule is released earlier, then the contest will close at that time. So anyone wanting to enter should really get their picks in soon.

People that are prohibited from entering include all employees and related of the NFL, plus United Airlines, which is the company doing the flying for the road games.

The second place prize is two tickets to both a home and away game of the Bears, with the away game including the same airfare and lodging that the grand prize winner would get for all the games. The second prize winner won’t be chosen by who gets closest, but instead each entrant gets one entry for the second prize and it will be drawn at random.

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