‘TNF’ Takeaways: Seahawks keep division hopes alive with ugly win vs. Bears

The Seattle Seahawks kept their slim NFC West division hopes alive on Thursday night with a 6-3 win over the Chicago Bears. 

Now they need to get some help on Sunday in the form of a Los Angeles Rams loss to the Arizona Cardinals to set up a potential winner-take-all Week 18 matchup between the Seahawks and Rams for the division. 

Here are four takeaways from the Seahawks win.

Style points do not matter for Seahawks

They should also be very thankful for that.

After losing two games in a row and facing long odds to win the division (and make the playoffs), the only thing the Seahawks had to concern themselves with on Thursday night was finishing with more points than the Bears.

They did.

It might not have been pretty.

It might have been ugly.

They might have lost to almost any other team in football. 

It might not have been an encouraging performance late in the season with everything on the line.

But they got it done. 

Now at 9-7 they have to get some help to win the division. If the Rams do not lose to the Cardinals on Sunday, the Seahawks would not only need to beat the Rams in Week 18, they would also need several teams around the league (some of which are not even close to the playoffs themselves) to win in order to secure the strength of victory tiebreaker the Seahawks would need to win the division. 

Seattle’s defense came through

While Seattle’s offense had a dud of a performance, the defense was able to put the team on its back and carry it with a dominant effort against a Bears team that looked as dysfunctional as an NFL team could possibly look.

Seattle entered the game allowing 22.7 points per game, 13th in the NFL, and not only limited the Bears to just three points in a must-win game, it also allowed just 11 first downs, 179 yards and only 3.1 yards per play, while also recording seven sacks and even more pressures. 

The Bears are a mess

It is difficult to put into words just how bad the Bears looked in this game and how bleak the situation is.

Not only did Thursday’s loss drop the Bears to 4-12 overall, it is their 10th loss in a row and saw them leaving the field to a chorus of boos and chants of “sell the team.” 

It is not hard to understand the frustration of the fans. 

It is not just that the Bears keep losing. It is that they keep finding new ways to lose, especially late in games. 

On Thursday, it was baffling clock management late in the game that saw interim head coach Thomas Brown and rookie quarterback Caleb Williams look to be completely out of their element. The Bears’ clock management was so bad on their final drive they used two timeouts with the clock already stopped (including on a fourth down play where the Bears initially lined up to punt) and allowed 20 seconds to run off before snapping the ball when they had multiple timeouts remaining.

Williams shows flashes of brilliance, but everything around him is so bad it is fair to wonder if the current front office can actually build around him and give him the support he needs to develop.

Bears fans deserve better than this

Even though the Bears entered the game 4-11 and on a nine-game losing streak,  and even though it was the day after Christmas, 40 degrees and raining, Bears fans still completely packed Soldier Field and created a festive, playoff atmosphere where nobody left early. 

That does not happen everywhere in those same settings. They are desperate for a winner. They are craving it. They demand it. They want it. All they get back in return is consistent incompetence.