The Bears entered the bye week with a 3-5 record, tied with the Vikings for last in the NFC North, two games behind the Packers, and four behind the Detroit Lions. The last time the Bears had been 3-5, yet made the playoffs was in 1979, and had also performed the feat in 1977, while the last time that Chicago had made the playoffs after having a record of two games below .500 occurred in 2005, when the team was 1-3, but finished the regular season 11-5. On offense, the Bears were tied for seventh in the league in passes per game with 37.4 and 27th in rushing attempts per game with 23.5. The offense had also regressed in points scored per game; in 2013, the team averaged 27.8 points, while after eight games in 2014, had scored only 22.4, despite having all 11 starters from 2013 returning. In their first three games, the Bears had a +4 turnover margin with eight turnovers forced and four turnovers allowed, but in their last five games, the margin was -7 with four takeaways and 11 giveaways, including -5 in the previous two games with no forced turnovers and five allowed turnovers; this marked the first time that the Bears had failed to force a turnover in consecutive games since 2010. Despite these struggles, the Bears' offense had the league's fifth-best red zone scoring percentage with 88.5.. How many games behind first place in the division were the Bears?