Bears Facing Formidable 2021 Road Schedule
The reward the Bears have received for finishing second in the NFC North at 8-8 not only is a wild-card berth in New Orleans, but something less pleasant in 2021.
The schedule gets much tougher than this season, when they played a schedule based on third-place opponents.
Bears opponents next year had a combined winning percentage this season of .553, which is the third most difficult schedule any NFL team will play.
The two teams with tougher schedules based on opposing win percentages are both on the 2021 Bears schedule—Pittsburgh (.563) and Baltimore (.559).
Half of their games are against teams in this year's playoffs.
Even rougher for the Bears is the fact most of their difficult games will come on the road. In fact, outside of their divisional opponents, the road opponents are ridiculously difficult.
They play road games against six playoff teams. The road opponents are the Rams (10-6), Seahawks (12-4), Browns (11-5), Steelers (12-4) and Buccaneers (11-5). Of course they play at Green Bay (13-3), and the only two losing opponents they play on the road are Minnesota (7-9) and Detroit (5-11).
At home, besides Detroit, Green Bay, and Minnesota, they will play the Cardinals (8-8), 49ers (6-10), Ravens (11-5), Bengals (4-11-1) and Giants (6-10).
The NFL will decide in the offseason on whether a 17th game will be added next season, and for the Bears it would be against the Las Vegas Raiders (8-8).
The extra game appears likely and is pending the negotiation of a new media contract. Each team would receive only one bye week.
Schedules are usually announced in April but the pandemic situation could change when those are finalized.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
