5 NFL contenders and pretenders: Bears, Browns up for debate
By John Buhler
Let’s find out if the Chicago Bears or the Cleveland Browns are contenders or pretenders.
The Chicago Bears and the Cleveland Browns straddle the fence of contender or pretender.
With a good chunk of NFL Week 6 action in the books, it’s time to look at a handful of playoff-contending teams and see if they belong in the contender category or the pretender category. Undefeated teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Tennessee Titans are obviously contenders, but what about the Bears, the Browns and a few other good, but not great teams?
Which NFL teams are contenders and pretenders through Week 6?
Chicago Bears (5-1)
You are what you record says you are and the Bears are a good team at 5-1. Though three of their wins aren’t impressive over the Detroit Lions, the New York Giants and the Atlanta Falcons, getting back-to-back wins over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Carolina Panthers are. It hasn’t been easy, but the Bears are in rhythm with Nick Foles as the starting quarterback.
The Bears defense is excellent, as it has allowed fewer than 20 points in four of their six games, including all three since Foles took over for Mitchell Trubisky as the starting quarterback. This is a team certainly capable of getting to 10-6, possibly 11-5 or 12-4 if they rattle off a few upsets. The only issue is they play in the same NFC North as the Green Bay Packers who are undefeated.
Splitting with Green Bay in the season series would be ideal, but if one of those two bitter rivals ends up completing the season sweep, you do realize it’s going to be Green Bay, right? Chicago is proving it can win one way, but the Bears will have challenges putting up points against a good team in a shootout. They’ve only scored 30 points once this year and that was vs. Atlanta.
Overall, the Bears project as the best second-place team in the NFC at this time. The NFC East is god awful, so that helps the Bears in getting a Wild Card berth. With the NFC West potentially a gauntlet and the Bears having so many head-to-head tiebreakers over NFC South, you better believe the Monsters of the Midway are a serious contender to make the playoffs at this time.