Where the Chicago Bears, Green Bay Packers, Detroit Lions & Minnesota Vikings stand heading into Week 16

CHICAGO

Week 15 result: Chicago 31, Cleveland 3

Offensive rank: 5th (369.1)

Scoring offense: 9th (26.1)

Defensive rank: 24th (345.5)

Scoring defense: 21st (24.1)

NFC playoff picture: No. 2 seed

Chicago’s playoff probability percentage stands at 74 percent.

(Next Gen Stats’ playoff probability simulates the remainder of the NFL season 10,000 times to estimate every team’s chances of making the playoffs)

Quotable: “I can’t say enough good things about our defense,” Bears head coach Ben Johnson said after holding Cleveland to three points in Sunday’s win. “This was really an outstanding performance. I know we gave up a couple explosives that we’d like to have back, but outside of one or two plays, they really did a phenomenal job shutting down the run game, making it second-and-long, third-and-long and getting off the field. When you combine that with the takeaways, which were enormous for us, they really carried the day for us.”

Twentyman: With their sixth win in the last seven games, coupled with the Packers’ loss to the Broncos Sunday, the Bears jumped Green Bay in the NFC North standings. For the second time in three weeks, the Bears will battle the Packers for first place in the division Saturday night at Soldier Field.

The defense has always been the biggest question mark for me when wondering how far the Bears can make it in the playoffs. Chicago ranks 24th in total defense and 21st in points allowed, but they lead the NFL with 30 takeaways (21 INT, 9 FUM) and that’s such a huge statistic in the Bears being No. 1 in the NFL in turnover differential at plus-20.

If the Bears win two of their final three games, or win one and the Lions lose one, they’ll have the edge over Detroit in the playoff picture as the Lions cannot get to 12 wins. Detroit would hold the tiebreaker edge over Chicago if they beat the Bears Week 18 and finish with the same record.

Remaining schedule: vs. Green Bay (9-4-1), at San Francisco (10-4), vs. Detroit (8-6)