Few expected the Chicago Bears to make the playoffs before the season began. Bookmakers gave Matt Nagy’s team 6-1 odds to reach the postseason, an implied probability of 14.3%.
The Action Network’s NFL simulations were even less optimistic about the Bears, giving Mitchell Trubisky a 5.5% chance of leading the team to the playoffs.
Despite the lack of hype, Chicago has defied the odds. On the strength of the league’s No. 1 defense, according to Football Outsiders DVOA, and a balanced offense helmed by an improving Trusbiksy, the Bears will play past Week 17 for the first time since 2010.
Chicago won 12 games after notching just five victories in 2017. This is the franchise’s first winning season since 2012.
Heading into Wild Card Weekend, the Bears will try replicate the Philadelphia Eagles’ success from a season ago and become the second team in consecutive years to win the Super Bowl after finishing in last place in its division the previous season.
Expectations are high in Chicago. The Bears are 9-1 to win the Super Bowl and one of just five teams with better than 10-1 odds. Chicago also opened as a 7-point favorite over Philly on Sunday (4:40 p.m. ET, NBC).
The betting market likes the Bears’ chances of advancing to the divisional round and making a run to Atlanta for the Super Bowl, but history suggests the team could struggle after a dramatic year-to-year improvement.
Chicago saw its win total jump by seven games from 2017 to 2018. Since 1990, 25 other franchises enjoyed a win total improvement of seven or more games from one season to the next.
Four of those teams didn’t make the playoffs, and if we exclude them from our sample and focus on the postseason participants, the results will make fans of the Bears, as well as bettors, nervous.
Of the remaining teams, only three made it to the Super Bowl and just one, the 1999 St. Louis Rams, won it all. In all, the teams that made a big jump from one year to the next went 15-20 straight up (SU) and 11-24 (31.4%) against the spread (ATS) in the playoffs, per Bet Labs.
A 25-team sample isn’t big, but we can nearly double the sample size by looking at teams that won six or more games than the previous season.
Since 1990, 44 teams added at least six wins to the prior season’s win total. Only five of those teams reached the Super Bowl, though three ended up lifting the Lombardi Trophy.
In the playoffs, these teams went 26-31 SU and 21-35-1 (37.5%) ATS.
The oddsmakers expect the Bears as home favorites to advance to the divisional round, but history is not on their side to cover or make a deep postseason run.
The Bears aren’t the only team that surprised based on the previous season’s win total. The Houston Texans (seven wins) and Indianapolis Colts (six wins) also made big jumps from 2017.
