The Chicago Bears had the #1 defense in the regular season by a number of measures, including Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric. The defense was actually historically good, and in the only playoff game they will compete in, they held Super Bowl MVP Nick Foles to 77.7 passer rating (the only time he has had a passer rating below 100 in the postseason). That’s remarkable.
It didn’t matter.
In fact, in three of the four wildcard contests, the better defense was lost: Chicago’s #1 defense lost to Philadelphia’s #15 defense, Houston’s #7 defense lost to Indianapolis’s #10 defense, and Baltimore’s #3 defense gave way to LA’s #8 defense.