Only winning the SB will give us respect. Otherwise, they'll all be "right". "See, the Bears were all smoke & mirrors and got bounced in the playoffs".
Winning it all solves it all. Anything less, and the naysayers save face. Even if we beat all those teams, we probably did so with help from the refs, lucky bounces, etc... They can rationalize any outcome. Only winning the big one would make them admit mistakes, even though I'm sure some would say we were still lucky. Which may be the case. Kind of like PIT beating SEA in the SB a few years back. No one's returning the trophy though...