Naturally, we’ll be spending a lot of time over the next few days breaking down the game between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers. As they are the only two potential NFCN playoff teams, there’s no point in pre-hashing what we’ll be rehashing between now and the game.

So with that, let’s take a look at the two other NFC North teams and what they face in this playoff-less offseason.

Chicago Bears

The Bears might not have been as bad as we all thought they were, but they certainly weren’t good.

The defense was once again in the bottom half of the league according to Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric, and ranked 27^th against the run (statistically speaking). While the pass defense looks better on paper, the run defense was so bad that the defense faced less pass attempts than any other team in the top ten outside of the Buffalo Bills.

In fact, in a “passing league” like the NFL, the Bears defense faced the third fewest pass attempts in the league.  Only the Bills and San Francisco 49ers faced fewer, and the Houston Texans faced the same amount.

So while the pass defense looks solid, we really didn’t see enough to know if the strides it made were real or not.

And then there is the offense. It seems like Jay Cutler could be on his way out, but who is going to replace him? Matt Barkley started off well, but the last two games he has thrown eight interceptions. Is there a free agent to look at? Or are they starting from scratch in a shaky quarterback draft class?

The Bears may be starting over under center, and the other question is whether Alshon Jeffery will be there when they do. He’s a free agent at the end of the season, and while the team can choose to franchise him, there are murmurs they won’t.  Of course, that leaves them with a shallow cast at wide receiver, which is centered on the oft-injured Kevin White.

John Fox has a lot of work to do in Chicago, assuming he even stays employed. Given the “two steps forward, three steps back” nature of his tenure with the Bears, that’s no sure thing.

Minnesota Vikings

There’s no two ways about it—this season was a disaster. Losing Teddy Bridgewater, then Adrian Peterson, watching as the offensive line disintegrates and then squandering a 5-0 run by missing the playoffs are all lowlights we saw happen in Minnesota.

All of that might be excused if the defense hadn’t forgotten to show up the last few games.  That’s the thing which really shocks and concerns you when you watch this team, as is the apparent mutiny by Terence Newman in regards to the Vikings gameplan against the Packers.

The defense is Zimmer’s baby—what is there to think when it not only falls apart but outright defies him?

Maybe they were just exhausted by the meltdown on offense. Sam Braford started out well, but he regressed and became exactly what we always knew he was—a decent quarterback who can implode at a moment’s notice. Of course, it’s hard to tell how good anyone is on the offensive side of things when the offensive line would be better served by replacing the players with traffic cones or actual turnstiles.

Priority number one, then, is to fix the offensive line. In fact, that should be priorities 1 through 57 because if the line plays in 2017 like it did in 2016, then even a clone comprised of the DNA of Roger Staubach, Brett Favre, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Joe Namath and Superman would fall short.

Next up is deciding what to do with Adrian Peterson. It really seems like the wheels have come off him, and his game has taken a step back. But—and this is not a new notion—even if he was still as good as ever, it’s been time to move on for a while. He is a liability on passing downs and his presence on the team seems to limit the playbook to “throw only when Adrian is tired.”

Maybe Jerick McKinnon and Matt Asiata aren’t the answer—again, behind that line who could tell?—but neither is an aging Peterson. Now that 2016 is basically in the books, cutting Peterson would save the team $18 million against the cap.

The Vikings are close, if they can fix the offensive line and de-glitch the defense. Hanging on to Peterson is a mistake which could hold them back going forward.