Aaron Rodgers Is Right: Defense Wins NFC North Championships and Other Bears Bullets

Yours truly won a fantasy football championship with Josh Allen and Garnder Minshew II at quarterback. And if that wasn’t impressive enough, I did so after limping into the playoffs with a 6-7 record while snagging the last possible spot. There is something to be said about getting hot at the right time, and I’m proud of my squad for getting it done. Here’s hoping your fantasy finish was as thrilling as mine!

And now … Bullets.

  • I was victorious in fantasy football (in part) because the Vikings defense gave up 23 points to the Packers. The win secured an NFC North title for That Team in Wisconsin and put them in the running for the top overall seed in the conference playoffs. But more than that, Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers said something that falls under the category of “the worst person you know just made a great point” when he said “Defense wins NFC North championships” in the post-game scrum. It pains me to say Rodgers is right, but Bears fans should already know that by now.
  • Clinching a fantasy championship distracted me from realizing that virtually everything that needed to happen for Chicago to have a puncher’s chance at a postseason spot happened. Well, except for the Bears winning the games they needed to in order to hold up their end of the bargain. Imagining what it would have felt like to write about a 9-6 team clawing its way into the playoff picture is pointless, but I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t do it.
  • Last year’s Bears offense was competent enough to win 12 games, but the defense carried the load in 2018. And while this year’s defense didn’t come away with as many takeaways as it did last year, checking in with a top-10 DVOA rating suggests another competent offensive showing would have had the Bears in the running for another postseason push. Instead, the Bears are joined by the Rams, Buccaneers, Broncos, and Jets in being out of the playoffs despite a sitting in the top half of Football Outsiders’ DVOA rankings. That isn’t the kind of company you want to keep, because each of those teams have legitimate offensive concerns thwarting defensive excellence.
  • This pained me:
  • No, I didn’t write the “Mitch Trubisky Ain’t It” piece solely based on what happened in Sunday’s Bears-Chiefs game. Doing so would have been irresponsible, because judging the future of the quarterback position on one game isn’t logical or sensible. In fact, it’s flat-out silly. But watching those two quarterbacks play should have provided a moment of awakening for what it is supposed to look like on offense.
  • What might be more alarming is that Trubisky’s issues are just part of the problem. Head Coach Matt Nagy should share responsibility, too. The Bears’ shortcomings are layered. Thankfully, we have a full offseason to dissect them all!
  • Soldier Field isn’t going to sound the same without Jim Riebrant:
  • Festive:
  • View this post on Instagram

    Decked out for @snfonnbc! #KCvsCHI

    A post shared by Chicago Bears (@chicagobears) on

  • Look who’s biz-ack:
  • This is like if all the Force ghosts from Star Wars came back to life and gave you a behind the scenes look at what really went down with the Jedi order:1
  • written by

    Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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