As the Bears celebrate NFC North title, they have a bigger goal in mind

It’s been three and a half months since Khalil Mack found out he was being traded to the Bears, a franchise that hadn’t won its division in eight years and had endured 34 losses in its previous three seasons.
 
So was what the Bears accomplished on Sunday — clinching the NFC North with a 24-17 win over the Green Bay Packers — the best-case scenario for what Mack could’ve expected with his new team?
 
“(Shoot), my best case scenario?” Mack said. “It hasn’t happened yet.”
 
The Bears partied hard in “Club Dub” after vanquishing Aaron Rodgers and the Packers at Soldier Field, but did so with an undercurrent of confidence that hasn’t been felt at this stadium in a long time. Winning the division was a goal set by Matt Nagy and this team, but it’s not the only goal this group has set.
 
Nobody said the words “Super Bowl” in the Bears’ locker room on Sunday. But they didn’t have to: This is a team that should have, and does have, legitimate aspirations to play in Atlanta in early February.
 
“We love to make people smile and believe the city deserves something big,” linebacker Danny Trevathan said. “And we’re going to give it to them.”
 
Still, while the Bears are thinking big, that they completed a worst-to-first turnaround is monumental accomplishment. Some players — like running back Tarik Cohen and defensive back Sherrick McManis — said they knew this was possible back in training camp. For wide receiver Allen Robinson, a seemingly-ugly 16-14 win over the Arizona Cardinals in Week 3 is what did it.
 
“It’s a lot of different ways that game could’ve went,” Robinson said. “We rallied back, we fought back, guys never complained, guys never pointed fingers — we don’t do anything of that.”
 
Other players pointed to November’s three-games-in-11-days stretch against the Detroit Lions, Minnesota Vikings and Lions again, in which the Bears went 3-0 to firmly plant themselves on top of the NFC North.
 
“I would say that’s probably when we all believed that okay, it’s going to be hard to beat us,” cornerback Prince Amukamara said.
 
The story of the 2018 Bears is of a team that consistently got better — and looks like it’s still getting better. This was a team that blew a 20-point lead in front of a primetime audience against its longtime rival in Week 1, then eight days later closed out a win over another future playoff team in the Seattle Seahawks.
 
The Bears lost two games in a row in early October to the Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots, then ripped off five consecutive wins. A week after an uncharacteristically sloppy loss to the New York Giants, the Bears became the first team to not allow a touchdown against the Sean McVay-led Los Angeles Rams.
 
And then on Sunday, the Bears proved they could finish a game against the Packers, even after a fake punt call backfired and allowed Rodgers to drive downfield to tie the game with under 20 minutes to go.
 
But this defense scrambled Rodgers, who missed a number of throws and never was able to get into a rhythm. Roquan Smith deflected a pass that was picked off by Eddie Jackson, ending Rodgers’ 402-pass streak without an interception. Leonard Floyd and Khalil Mack had monster games, combining for four and a half sacks, while on the other side of the ball Mitch Trubisky made the plays the Bears needed to take, and hold on to, the lead.
 
“I’m not going to lie,” defensive lineman Akiem Hicks said. “I’m not going to lie to you guys and say I didn’t enjoy taking it. Green Bay is not our friend. We have nothing in common and we want to beat them as many times as we can whenever we can. So I loved it.”
 
The Bears now need only a win or a Dallas Cowboys loss over the season’s final two weeks to lock up the NFC No. 3 seed. Their work in the regular season isn’t done yet, though ideally for this team it would be by the time they head to Minnesota to end the season.
 
And from there, the Bears will host a playoff game at Soldier Field for the first time since 2010. The big question about this season no longer is if the Bears are good enough to make the playoffs — they are. The question is: Is this team good enough to make a run to the Super Bowl?
 
Or maybe the better question is: Why not?
 
“Our best ball has not been played,” Trevathan said. “We still have a lot more to do for this city and for this team.”