As you know, we're "tied" for 1st with the Bears and Vikings. I put "tied" in quotations, because we hold the tie breaker vs both teams. Chicago by virtue of the head-to-head win and Minnesota by virtue of division record. At first glance, I would think that we need to go 5-1 over the next 6 games to win the division, but I don't know that that's true. 4-2 would put us at 9-7 and very well could win the division. So long as we beat the Bears again, 4-2 would do it unless the Bears or Vikings went 5-1. Now take a look at their schedules.
Bears:
@ St Louis
@ Minnesota
vs Jacksonville
vs New Orleans
vs Green Bay
@ Houston
Remember, we're basing our premise on the assumption that we beat the Bears, so that's one loss. Can you see them running the table on the other 3 road games plus 2 home games vs Jacksonville and New Orleans. I don't.
Vikings:
@Jacksonville
vs Chicago
@ Detroit
@ Arizona
vs Atlanta
vs New York Giants
The Vikings have a much tougher schedule. In fact, you could argue that they'll only be favored @ Detroit. The Giants may not be playing for anything in Week 17. Regardless, the Vikings aren't winning 5 of those games and probably not even 4. It also means we should be rooting for Minnesota to beat Chicago in two weeks.
The whole point of this analysis is to show that, assuming a win over the Bears, we only need 3 other wins to win the division. Let's take a look at the schedule.
Green Bay:
@ New Orleans
vs Carolina
vs Houston
@ Jacksonville
@ Chicago
vs Detroit
We assumed our win vs Chicago, so where are the other 3 wins? Houston and Detroit should be 2, so just one of the road games or the home game vs Carolina would get us there. But it's all dependent on us beating the Bears. If you put that in our loss column, we pretty much have to win the other 5.
I guess this whole post can be summarized by one statement:
Whoever wins the Packers/Bears game is likely to win the division.I also don't see this division being decided UNTIL that Packers/Bears game.