Redskins-Bears: Thursday Night Knockout

Everyone knows the Redskins and the Bears are on the periphery of the playoff hunt in the NFC.

Both squads are a game back of the streaking Vikings for the No. 6 seed. It's still possible for one of these teams to play itself back into contention—but not both.

The 'Skins and the Bears each have upcoming games against the Vikes, and thus control their own destiny to a certain degree.

Still, one of them has to lose Thursday night.

And the losing team not only goes a game down on the winner (with tiebreaker problems to boot)—it's also likely to end Week 14 further back of the Vikings.

Minnesota, who seems to be emerging as the team to beat for the last playoff spot in the NFC, visits the 49ers. The simulator at ChanceBot.com gives the Vikings a 69 percent chance of leaving San Francisco with a win. 

Overall, ChanceBot calculates the playoff chances for each team (expressed as a percentage) as follows:

	Chicago	Washington
Current Chances	3.48	9.17
If Chicago Wins	8.17	1.85
If Washington Wins	0.91	13.30

Clearly both of these teams are already in trouble. But both stand a decent chance if they can win out—and Washington might even have room to drop one to either Dallas or the Giants.

But however you cut it, Thursday's game is a must-win.

Of course, this isn't really a secret to anyone—so expect to see a hard-fought contest.

Mark Myers is the founder and primary developer at ChanceBot.com, a sports simulation and analysis website. He can be reached at [e-mail]