Draft-wise, Bears can win by losing to 49ers

Thank God for Fox.

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You know you are having a bad season when the only way to win is to lose.

The downtrodden Bears are in the unenviable position of gaining more from a loss to the 49ers on Sunday at Soldier Field than they would a victory. The loser will be in better position but far from guaranteed the No. 2 overall pick in 2017 as draft position suddenly has become a hot topic of conversation with five games remaining.

That the Bears theoretically would benefit from losing to the 49ers instead of adding another victory to a miserable 2016 resume is a conversation players refuse to consider. They can't. Outside linebacker Willie Young walked away Wednesday when the topic was broached.

Teams never like to talk about draft position, but consider for a moment the end of the 1997 season when the Bears won three of their final five games to finish 4-12. With one more loss they could have had future Hall of Famer Charles Woodson. With two more losses they could have had Peyton Manning. Instead, they drafted running back Curtis Enis, and the coaching staff was fired the following year. Here the franchise again is playing out the string with a series of seemingly meaningless games.

If the draft was based on current records, the Bears (2-9) would own the No. 4 pick, just behind the Jaguars (2-9) based on the reverse strength-of-schedule tiebreaker. But if the Bears lose to the 49ers (1-10), they potentially could vault to No. 2 and the teams project to have very similar strength-of-schedule percentages at the end of the season. According to playoffstatus.com, the Bears have a 16 percent chance of owning the No. 2 pick, a figure that would rise if they lose. They have a 79 percent of having a top-five pick. The 0-12 Browns are at 80 percent to have the No. 1 pick.

"I don't even want to be in the top five, so maybe if we can win out," outside linebacker Pernell McPhee said. "It's embarrassing when you get a top-five pick. That lets you know how (crappy) you are.

"You can't never understand it. Until you play this game and reach this level, people will never understand this just ain't no game. This is real. They will never understand because they don't put in the work, which is 12 months."
Manning on horizon

"There are some things obviously you're concerned about, but overall, his intangibles are as good as I've seen on any quarterback. He's so smart on the field and knows where to go with the football. He has a lot of special things that you win championships with as far as I'm concerned." — Bears vice president of personnel Mark Hatley on Peyton Manning to the Tribune's Don Pierson, Oct. 26, 1997.

Twelve weeks into the 1997 season the Bears were tied with the Colts for the worst record at 1-10, making Manning and Ryan Leaf worthy of discussion at Halas Hall. They went on to win three of their next four games, defeating the Buccaneers, Bills and the Rams.

The Dec. 14 victory over the Rams in the season's penultimate game at the TWA Dome was certainly curious. Starting quarterback Erik Kramer was pulled with 12 minutes, 2 seconds remaining in the third quarter and the game tied 7-7. Kramer had completed 14 of 22 passes for 186 yards, one touchdown and one interception before giving way to Rick Mirer, who had not gotten meaningful playing time since September. Mirer completed only 1 of 7 passes for 8 yards and threw an interception, but the defense forced four turnovers in the final 16 1/2 minutes, including a strip-sack that set the offense up on the Rams' 7-yard line for the game-winning field goal. Mirer wasn't the only reserve substituted into the game.

"The plan was not so much to win the game as it was to get those guys in," Kramer said. "We want to win the game in the process, but whether we're 3-13, 4-12 or whatever at the end of the season doesn't make a huge difference."

Auditioning players at multiple positions did not sit well with linebacker Ron Cox, who was furious after the game.

"I came here to win and they're playing people and switching people around?" Cox said. "Do it in the preseason. I don't give a damn about draft picks."
Bears quarterbacks through the years

Packers win, lose out

"I can understand the fans' standpoint. But they don't make the commitment to those players that we do as coaches and the commitment players make to each other. When you go out and you're a competitor, it's not about next year. It's about now. You're putting it all on the line. It's hard to mail it in." — former Bears defensive coordinator Greg Blache.

Blache was on the Colts staff that benefited from drafting Manning, but a decade earlier he was with Lindy Infante's staff when the 3-12 Packers closed out the 1988 season in Arizona, where they rallied for a 26-17 victory over the Cardinals. Had the Packers lost, they would have held the No. 1 pick, and longtime Packers writer Bob McGinn said indications were Troy Aikman would have been their man.

"This victory means a heck of a lot more to us than having the first pick," Infante said after the game, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Said Packers linebacker Brian Noble: "It's like asking an IndyCar driver if you're going to go out and crash. Hey, if we're going to go out and lose a football game for the first pick, tell me before because I don't want to play."

The Packers wound up with offensive tackle Tony Mandarich with the No. 2 pick, one of the all-time draft busts, and the next three players to come off the board were Barry Sanders, Derrick Thomas and Deion Sanders, evidence that the Packers' victory in Arizona wasn't the franchise's only miscue.

"You just can't," Blache said of late-season tanking. "It's just contradictory to everything you do, preach, live. It's just totally counter to everything that is in an athlete or coaches' DNA."
Winning is only goal

It's important for the front office to put a total commitment to winning all the way to the end of the season because if the players get the sense that winning isn't the only goal at all times, they're going to lose faith in the process and the organization. So even if general manager Ryan Pace is coveting the highest possible pick, he can't say that. Coaches are judged by results only, so late-season losses only work against them.

Herm Edwards was the Jets coach in 2002 when he delivered the epic rant "you play to win the game," driving home the point that every action each week is with the goal of succeeding on Sunday. Fourteen years later, it still resonates, and that's the Bears' approach as the season winds down.

"That is literally the furthest thing from our minds," tight end Logan Paulsen said. "For us to play poorly to get a higher pick, no. I have to worry about my job, not only for this week and for this season but for next year. I might not be here as a Chicago Bear.

"A scout told me once, 'We don't evaluate a whole year, we evaluate your last three games.' To me, I am always like, 'How have my last three games been?' It doesn't matter how I played in Week 1 or Week 5. How did Weeks 9, 10 and 11 look? That keeps you motivated and that keeps you sharp."

On top of all that, the integrity of the game is an important aspect that cannot be overlooked. What if the Vikings' playoff hopes are on the line when the Bears end the season in Minneapolis on Jan. 1? Bears fans would be apoplectic if another team gave less than its all in a game that cost their team a playoff spot in a reversed scenario.

Coaches and players never will recognize the benefit of losing. That doesn't mean it isn't real. Too bad there doesn't appear to be a Peyton Manning-like prize at the top of the 2017 draft.

bmbiggs@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @bradbiggs

All that to say...don't count on the players actively helping out...although the way they have been playing....

This again? Another post about losing out by another true loser. It figures.