NFL Playoff Picture: Predicting Wild-Card Hopefuls That Will Fall Short

With just three weeks left in the NFL season, several teams are still sweating it out on the playoff bubble. While a handful of those squads will end up in the postseason, all the others will be left out in the cold come January. Here are three teams that will fall into the latter category.

Chicago Bears

Injuries to Jay Cutler and Matt Forte have decimated an offense that scored at least 30 points in six of Chicago's first 10 games. The Bears have tallied just 13 points in their last two games combined, including Sunday's 13-10 loss to the Denver Broncos.

It's an unfortunate turn of event for the Bears, who are finally starting to get better performances out of their usually vaunted defense. They could be rounding into a very dangerous playoff team if Cutler and Forte were still in the picture.

Instead, it appears they'll be left on the outside looking in. With so many teams in contention and already a game behind the current wild-card leaders, Chicago would need to win out to have a chance, and that isn't likely.

Cincinnati Bengals

Cincinnati has been one of the season's most surprising teams. The Bengals were expected to go through a rebuilding phase of sorts with Andy Dalton taking over at quarterback, but they've managed to stay in the thick of things throughout.

That's partly due to a favorable schedule as their best win came against the Tennessee Titans. It can't be completely contributed to that, though. The Bengals have done a nice job of limiting turnovers and taking advantage of opponents' mistakes.

They have two winnable games, which would bring Cincinnati to nine wins, before a finale clash with the Baltimore Ravens. Since the game will likely mean something to Baltimore, the Bengals' journey will fall just short.

Tennessee Titans

The Titans' rally against New Orleans came up just short on Sunday, which could end up being the downfall to their season. If Matt Hasselbeck wouldn't have been injured during that final drive, the outcome could have very well been different.

Tennessee's situation is quite similar to that of Cincinnati. After two games the Titans should win, they finish with a tough road test against the Texans. Houston hasn't missed a beat since losing quarterback Matt Schaub to injury.

Since Tennessee has already lost to Cincinnati, it's simply a matter of too many things needing to fall its way to make the playoffs.