Silly you indeed. It is certainly not about winning playoff games.
Ask older Buffalo Bill fans about 4 consecutive years of winning the most playoff games possible without winning a single Super Bowl, how they feel about all of those playoff games that they won and about all 4 consecutive Super Bowls that they lost.
It is all about taking steps forward:
- First you clear up the dead wood, fix the cap problems and start developing your QB.
- Then it is about filling your roster with good players, developing your QB to become a good starter level, winning more games and possibly getting into the playoffs.
- Then it is about becoming a yearly playoffs participant and sometimes winning a playoff game or two.
- Then it is about becoming a true Super Bowl contender.
- Then it is about becoming a Super Bowl champion.
- The ultimate is becoming THE yearly Super Bowl favorite who wins multiple Super Bowls.
Now the steps do not necessarily need to be yearly steps. Several of them can happen in the same year. Some may take longer.
Sometimes, the steps are altered a bit.
KC is an excellent example of this. They built the system with an older QB. Once it was blossoming, they lucked into getting the possible future GOAT QB and allowing him a year to learn the system. KC was already at step 4 above when Mahomes came along and, after one year, took the team to level 6.
Sadly, the Bears just completed step 1. This year hopefully is step 2 and the Bears either make the playoffs as a wildcard team or have a marked improvement.