By Jeremy Harris
There are many Chicago Bears’ fans who seem shockingly indifferent about the Bears and Green Bay Packers game Sunday, the outcome of which will determine the NFC North division champions. The detractors argue that the Bears have no chance of winning the Super Bowl this season and likely not even a playoff game and thus a playoff appearance in and of itself is pointless.
Even assuming the Bears cannot catch playoff lightning in a bottle and that their first playoff appearance since 2010 and only their second since 2006 sets up as a Soldier Field home-team bludgeoning, NFL history suggests that this would be a much-preferred outcome for the Bears than missing the playoffs and finishing 8-8.
According to that history, a playoff defeat, no matter how decisive, would likely advance the Bears’ ultimate goal of winning a championship far more than cleaning out their lockers next Monday.
Since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, 43 teams have been crowned Super Bowl champions. 33 or 77% of those teams made the playoffs the season before winning the championship. Of the other ten teams, six made playoff appearances within three years of their championship (thus 91% of the 43 teams enjoyed prior postseason continuity with their championship season). Only four of the 43, nine percent, are what we call anomalous champions, teams that endured several years of not making the playoffs before ascending to a Super Bowl championship in one season.
The 1985 Super Bowl champion Bears fit the most common description, having advanced to the 1984 NFC championship game before being throttled by the eventual Super Bowl champion San Francisco 49ers 23-0. Whether it is being chastened by playing in the white hot glare of the playoffs or a team having its shortcomings exposed by elite competition so that it can burnish those weaknesses during the offseason, there is no question that the correlation between eventual Super Bowl success and previous playoff experience is strong.
Playoff appearances do not guarantee Super Bowl success–Minnesota Vikings’ and Buffalo Bills’ fans can lament about this reality red faced for days–but the lack of playoff experience almost always precludes championship success.
Here is a closer look at the ten teams who won a Super Bowl without making the playoffs the previous season:
1) 1970 Baltimore Colts: The Colts were just two years removed from their infamous Super Bowl loss to the New York Jets.
2) 1980 Oakland Raiders: The Raiders had made the playoffs every year from 1970 to 1977 with the exception of 1971, including winning the 1976 Super Bowl, before missing the post-season in 1978 and 1979 despite posting winning records both years.
3) 2001 New England Patriots: The Patriots made the playoffs three consecutive seasons from 1996 to 1998, including the 1996 Super Bowl.
4) 2003 New England Patriots: The Patriots did not make the playoffs between their 2001 and 2003 championships.
5) 2009 New Orleans Saints: The Saints were three years removed from losing the 2006 NFC Championship game.
6) 2011 New York Giants: The Giants were three years removed from four consecutive playoff appearances.
To recapitulate, 33 of the 43 Super Bowl champions since 1970 appeared in the playoffs the previous season. Six of the ten teams who did not (see above) were three or fewer years removed from previous postseason appearances and thus enjoyed some previous playoff continuity with their Super Bowl season.
In only four instances since 1970 have there been anomalous Super Bowl champions, teams that had huge gaps between previous playoff appearances and the year they were crowed champions.:
1) 1981 San Francisco 49ers: The 49ers had not been to the playoffs since 1972, nine years.
2) 1982 Washington Redskins: The Redskins were six years removed from their most recent playoff appearance in 1976.
3) 1999 St. Louis Rams: The Rams had been without a playoff appearance since 1989 when QB Kurt Warner led them on a magic carpet ride.
4) 2000 Baltimore Ravens: The Ravens had never been to the playoffs since coming into existence in 1996 and had not been to the playoffs as their predecessor, the Cleveland Browns, since 1994.
What this precedent proves is whether the Bears were to win or lose in the playoffs this season is less relevant than getting to the postseason in terms of advancing their goal of winning a Super Bowl in the next few seasons.
That is because the NFL requires most teams to climb tiers to win a championship, and the playoffs is an education on how to climb those tiers. For example, it took the Packers three playoff defeats between 1993 and 1995 before finally winning the Super Bowl in 1996. The Raiders of the 1970’s went through five postseason defeats before getting the piano removed from their backs in 1976. The sooner the Bears start their playoff education, the sooner they might reach their ultimate goal
A second and equally important goal would be achieved if the Bears made the playoffs: attention would be diverted away from, as we wrote about previously, head coach Marc Trestman’s inexplicably poor game management decisions against the Detroit Lions at home and the Minnesota Vikings on the road that almost assuredly cost the Bears two victories that would have rendered Sunday’s game against the Packers largely meaningless. But for those game-costing decisions, the Bears would have ten wins, would have already clinched the division and would be battling for playoff seeding and not to get into the postseason.
With a victory, the focus can be shifted from Trestman-related lament and rage to preparing for the playoffs and, after the playoffs, focusing on the wonderful job Trestman has done improving the Bears’ offense and how he and Bears General Manager Phil Emery can make the same progress to an aging and injury-riddled defense.
A Bears’ loss Sunday promises to return the emphasis all offseason to how Trestman’s terrible game management frittered away a playoff appearance. This could risk raising Trestman’s profile of incompetent game management in the locker room and cause resentment among his players and Bears fans.
Thus, the Bears have two major incentives to win Sunday: climbing a tier toward their championship goal and giving their coach a mulligan for decisions he hopefully will never repeat again.