The Bears need to beat the Lions and have the Packers defeat the Vikings to make the postseason. It should’ve not come to this for the Bears but rooting for the Packers is the only alternative if the Bears take care of business at noon.

The 2008 Bears and 2011 Blackhawks faced similar situations where the regular season went down to the wire.

The 2008 Bears came to mind because I just recently saw the movie Silver Linings Playbook. A key part of the movie was the 2008 Eagles, which is a team that made the 2009 playoffs. (Sidenote: Why was Robert Dinero’s wife wearing a Kevin Kolb jersey in one of the scenes? Kolb was in his second season then and only had 34 pass attempts in six games that year.)

One of the reasons that Eagles team made the playoffs is because the Bears lost in Houston in the regular season finale. At the same time the Vikings won their game to win the division. Vikings made it, Bears left out, hope that doesn’t happen on Sunday.

The hockey example happened two seasons ago. The Blackhawks played the Red Wings in an early game. A Chicago point would’ve gotten them into the playoffs, but they lost in regulation. With the loss, the Blackhawks needed to rely on the Minnesota Wild to beat the Dallas Stars and the Wild came through for the Blackhawks. Chicago, Detroit and Minnesota teams were all involved. In this case the Chicago team went to the postseason before losing in the first round.

So what will happen to the 2012 Bears on Sunday?