3 Chicago Bears Who Need to Step Up and Earn Their Jobs by Season's End

The Chicago Bears will have to dig deep to find the will to win over the final three weeks of the season now that the postseason is out of reach.

Jobs in 2015 might be the only thing left to play for—aside from personal pride, obviously.

Despite the Bears' 5-8 record, head coach Marc Trestman doesn’t appear ready or willing to make any moves to shake things up, which is exactly what’s going on with the New Orleans Saints, the Bears' next opponent.

The Saints also sit with a 5-8 record. The only difference between New Orleans and Chicago is the Saints are tied for the NFC South division lead. Shocking, right? But that hasn’t stopped head coach Sean Payton from releasing players, benching starters and who knows what else.

"I don’t rule out any changes with regard to who we are asking to do what we are asking them to do," Payton said, via NewOrleansSaints.com. "If it is not happening, if it is not happening over a long period of time, then we are going to look at other options. That is our business."

On one hand, you have Payton who seems ready and willing to piss off anyone and everyone in order to send a message to his team. And on the other hand, you have Trestman who, after embarrassing losses like to Green Bay in Week 10, says things like this: "I think this team and this locker room is in a good place at this time."

Trestman uttered those ridiculous words more than one month ago, and nothing has changed since then. So you can see just how good of a place the Bears locker room must be in now, with the team being out of playoff contention with three games to play.

If Trestman can’t motivate his players to step up and play better football, then his players need to step up on their own, for the sake of earning jobs next season.

Here’s a look at three Chicago Bears who need to step up and earn their jobs down the final stretch of the season/

Spoiler alert: Jay Cutler, Marc Trestman and Mel Tucker were purposefully left off this list. 

FS Chris Conte

David Banks/Getty Images

This one is pretty cut and dry, actually. Conte is set to become a free agent after the season, and it would be rather shocking to see him return to Chicago.

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t playing for a job over the final three-game stretch. The starting free safety has missed snaps due to injury in at least seven games this season. He needs to spend these next three contests on the football field in hopes of convincing another team that he can put together a stretch of healthy games.

Despite having a knack for intercepting the football—he ranks ninth among safeties with three—Conte often is caught out of position, which leads to big plays for the opposition.

He was the culprit on Randall Cobb’s game-winning touchdown for the Green Bay Packers in Week 17 of the 2013 season—in a game that the Bears needed to win in order to make the postseason. He was the butt of jokes after the Bears’ Week 1 loss to the Buffalo Bills. And he badly mistimed his jump in coverage on Cole Beasley's second touchdown that came on third down in the Cowboys' Week 14 win over the Bears.

Pro Football Focus (subscription required) ranks Conte No. 59 on its list of the NFL’s best safeties. What’s most sad about is he is the best safety on the Bears roster.

Bears fans have been cruel to Conte over the course of his four seasons in the Windy City. After it was announced that he would miss the rest of the Dallas game due to injury, fans at Soldier Field cheered his exit.

Conte has the talent to be a solid NFL player, but a lack of health has stood in his way since he was drafted by the Bears in the third round of the 2011 NFL draft. Even though his time in Chicago is becoming more and more forgettable by the day, he deserves another shot elsewhere.

He now has three games to make a positive statement.

K Robbie Gould

Charles Rex Arbogast/Associated Press

Robbie Gould is a likable guy. He’s loved in Chicago, despite only being a kicker.

Seeing another full-time kicker in Gould’s place on the roster would be weird, but that should happen during the offseason.

He signed a four-year, $15 million contract extension in the waning days of the 2013 season. While it might seem strange to be jettisoning a player one year into his contract, the Bears don’t have a need for him anymore. This underachieving 5-8 team has more important needs elsewhere on the roster.

Gould is having the worst season of his 10-year career with the Bears. He's made nine of 12 field goals in 12 games this season. He went a stretch of three games without an attempt and then followed up by missing his next two attempts.

Whether Gould’s struggles are due to inability or inactivity, it shouldn't matter. A kicker isn't worth $3.6 million per season, which is the cap hit Gould will carry if he returns for 2015. If the Bears did decide to part ways, he would count as $1.8 million in dead money.

But this is more about his cost than his performance as the Bears kicker. Take a look at the list of kicker salaries in the NFL, via Spotrac.com. There are some pretty solid kickers near the bottom of the list who make much less than Gould.

Gould gets paid to do one thing—kick the football. He needs to do that flawlessly over these next three games.

Linebacker Shea McClellin

Marcio Jose Sanchez/Associated Press

Since being drafted No. 19 overall in the first round of the 2012 NFL draft, Shea McClellin has been nothing but a colossal disappointment.

General manager Phil Emery saw potential in McClellin, clearly thinking the Boise State product could rush the passer in the NFL, much like he did in college. But McClellin didn’t find a whole lot of success in that area, as he recorded just 6.5 sacks in two seasons.

McClellin’s time as a defensive end didn’t last very long, mostly due to the fact that he couldn’t stop the run to save his life. It was before the 2014 season that Emery decided that a position change from defensive end to linebacker was in the player's best interests.

The results have been mixed. McClellin has been a better run defender this season, playing from the new position, but his pass-coverage skills leave a lot to be desired. Pro Football Focus rates McClellin as the worst coverage linebacker in the league, which is determined based on a quarterback’s passer rating when throwing in McClellin’s direction.

The former first-round pick has three games to show even more improvement, or he should be jettisoned after the season. McClellin is set to be a free agent after the 2015 season, but there’s little point in keeping him beyond 2014 unless he somehow becomes Brian Urlacher during the final stretch of the season.

McClellin carries a cap hit of $2,629,263 in 2015 but only $1,888,036 in dead money if he’s released. Even though Emery has been reluctant to be the least bit critical of his first-ever draft pick as a general manager, he needs to admit his mistake and give someone else a shot. Christian Jones, perhaps.

All contract information used in this post comes via Spotrac.com. All quotes obtained firsthand unless otherwise noted.