LAKE FOREST, Ill. — The Bears are not quitting on 2014.

It was a predictable message Monday at Halas Hall as general manager Phil Emery and head coach Marc Trestman held their annual bye week press conference, but it’s a message they clearly mean. With Tuesday’s trade deadline looming, the Bears could opt to sell off a couple veterans for a draft pick or two, but the front office maintains that despite sitting at 3-5 with glaring weaknesses up-and-down the roster, they’re still all-in for this season.

“We’ve had two or three interesting things that have come across, where people have called (about trades),” Emery admitted. “But nothing that helps the Bears win now.”

Just so everyone is clear, winning now means going at least 7-1 in the second half of the season to have more than a coin-flip’s chance of making the playoffs. It means beating the Packers in Green Bay and probably the Lions in Detroit. And it means going 5-0 at home, where the Bears are 0-3 this season.

Winning now is never easy in the NFL. And a mediocre 3-5 team winning seven of their last eight games seems damn near impossible right now. From 1990-2013, only seven percent of teams with a 3-5 record went on to make the playoffs. That number comes via an interesting chart from FiveThirtyEight.com, which also shows that had the Bears beat the Patriots to get to 4-4, they’re chances of making the playoffs would have been 33 percent — not great, but a lot better than seven percent.

If the Bears go 6-2 to finish at 9-7, history shows they’ll have a 51 percent chance of making the playoffs — essentially a coin flip. If they manage to go 7-1 to finish at 10-6, those chances go all the way up to 88 percent.

“We’re not quitting on the season. We’re not quitting on ourselves,” Emery said. “We’ve got a lot in front of us. The first step is to win a football game. That’s the first step to accomplish.”

There Will Be No Coaching Changes During The Bye Week

That surprises no one, but it was something that needed confirmation Monday.

“We have everybody in position right here,” Trestman said. “We feel, without question, we built a work ethic. A system of doing things in this building is in place to have the consistency we need to win. We’re disappointed because we haven’t done that. we haven’t done that. We’re 3-5. It’s not good. It’s not good. We understand that is not a good situation. But we do feel we have the foundation to build from here, and that’s the next step.”

There Will Be No Major Personnel Changes Either

And Emery made it clear that’s not because of the amount of guaranteed money they are currently paying out (i.e. the $22.5 million Jay Cutler is receiving this year).

“The players that are here are the ones that are going to help us win,” Emery said. “They’re the ones that are going to get us there. In terms of the guaranteed (money), that doesn’t have any part of the thinking right now. We’re focused in on helping the players that we have get better at their profession and to get better as a team. Definitely I’m not sitting around with the salary cap spreadsheet trying to figure out if we can make something different happen as far as a new player or change any of the status of the current players.”

And really, what can Emery do at this point? In the NFL, the offseason is really the only time you can make a big impact on a roster. Unlike baseball, hockey and basketball, one or two trades or signings in the middle of the year is not going to change a team’s overall outlook.

Expect The Bears To Run The Ball More In The Second Half Of The Season

The Bears enter the bye week 14th in total offense and 13th in scoring offense, two realities that are hard to explain for a unit with so much firepower.

“The key is we have to achieve a better run-pass balance,” Emery said. “When you have a better run-pass balance, you keep your opponents off balanced and you have a chance to hit big-chunk plays like we’ve had them hit against us.”

That challenge falls in the lap of Trestman, the one designing the game plans and calling the plays.

“I do have to do a better job with that and that comes with our first down productivity has to be better,” the head coach said. “We have to get it where it was a year ago where we’re in continuity with the chains and we’re in second and manageable situations and so forth. We got to do a better job of that because we have an offensive line that can block the run and we’ve got a very good running back. We’ve got to do that.”

There Was Some Actual Criticism Of Jay Cutler

And it went beyond the normal stuff about protecting the football (although it did take a couple questions to get beyond that).

“I’ve been watching (Cutler) since he’s (was at) Vanderbilt,” Emery said. “In the past, he was better than everybody around him and when you’re better than everybody around you, you’re pressed to make plays. Coming out of Vanderbilt, some of his things from a technical standpoint were concerning, in terms of coming off the back foot, protecting the football. And a lot of that revolves around trying to make plays. And Jay, like a lot of players in that position, has a little bit of a gun-slinger personality in terms of, ‘I wanna be the guy making the plays.’ He trusts his arm. Those are habits. Habits are hard to improve.”

Emery went on to say that he’s seen improvement from Cutler’s days at Vanderbilt, especially in the last two years.

“I know where we were at two years ago, and I know how many sacks he took, how much pressure and hits that he played through, and how he tried to overcome that group that was in front of him and how he tried to compensate,” Emery said.

There’s no question Cutler has better help and protection around him. It’s also fair to say that he’s improved this year compared to last year, but he’s still turning the ball over, which is a big problem.

If the Bears want to have any chance of turning the season around, Cutler has to stop turning the ball over — almost entirely.

Lamarr Houston Is Out For The Year

It was one of the most embarrassing injuries in the history of the NFL and it’s going to cost the Bears dearly. Houston suffered a torn ACL Sunday celebrating a sack on Patriots backup quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo while the Bears were trailing by 25-points.

“We’re disappointed for him and in him,” Emery said. “He knows he made an error. He’s come into all of our offices and apologized for his error but ultimately the team paid a price and at the end of the day Lamarr paid a bigger price: He lost the season. So enough said.”

Houston deserves credit for apologizing to the coaching staff and front office, but he also needs to apologize to all of his teammates. As of Tuesday morning, safety Ryan Mundy told 87.7 The Game’s “Kap and Haugh” that he had not seen or heard from Houston since the plane ride home from New England.

And don’t underestimate the loss of Houston. The sack in question may have been his first sack of the season, but the defensive lineman had been very effective against the run and was leading the team in quarterback disruptions, according to STATS.

Houston’s rehab will take six to eight months, according to Emery, which puts him on pace to resume team activities during May’s OTAs or June’s veteran mini-camp.

Matt Slauson Is Also Out For The Year And Jordan Mills Could Move To Guard

Slauson suffered a torn pectoral muscle against the Patriots and will not be back this season. Eben Britton or Brian de la Puente would be the most obvious choices to take over at left guard, but Trestman said it could be Jordan Mills, who started 23 straight games at right tackle before sitting out Sunday’s game with a foot injury.

“I think that (Mills) could fit into any position, I really do,” Trestman said. “We’ve had some discussions about it to see what is going to be best for our line with (Slauson) moving out and we’ll continue to do that and I’m leaving that open-ended, we’ll see where that goes.”

If Mills moves to left guard, that would presumably mean Michael Ola would stay at right tackle, where he started Sunday in place of Mills.

Lance Briggs Should Return After The Bye Week

He has missed three straight games since suffering what the Bears are calling a ribs injury Oct. 5.

“I was here at all the practices last week, (Briggs) was moving around pretty darn well,” Emery said. “I think he’s taken a lot of pride in getting himself ready. And I saw him in the locker room after the game and that’s all he said to me, he said, ‘I will be ready next week.’”

Emery also said linebacker Darryl Sharpton has a right hamstring injury and will most likely miss the game against the Packers in two weeks. Mills, linebacker Jon Bostic and safety Danny McCray are “healing and should be ready to practice” after the bye, while Emery is also “very optimistic that Marquess Wilson should be ready to practice or start his practice clock here within the next two weeks.”

Wilson has been out since suffering a broken clavicle in training camp. He’s currently on short-term IR.

The Soldier Field Turf Isn’t Going To Change… Yet

Emery reiterated what he said a week ago in an online chat with Bears fans: “We’re open to the discussion. There’s a lot to work through. It’s not going to change here in the next week.”

It would be unrealistic to think that the Bears would do what the Patriots did in 2006 and install FieldTurf mid-way through the season, but it does appear that the franchise is more open to a field surface change than ever before.

That, of course, doesn’t mean it will happen, as the Bears will still have to work with the city and the Chicago Park District to get it done. Stay tuned.

Adam Hoge covers the Bears for 87.7 The Game and TheGameChicago.com. Follow him on Twitter at @AdamHoge.