With the Vikings coming off a losing season and undergoing a full reboot at quarterback, hardly anybody took them seriously going into this season. They are now.
For all the wistful speculation about the Bears pulling an upset Sunday at Soldier Field, the Vikings are no joke. They’re 8-2, they have a top-five defense, one of the NFL’s best players regardless of position in wide receiver Justin Jefferson and a quarterback in Sam Darnold playing at a Pro Bowl level.
That enough to get your attention?
The Vikings have been uneven lately, but their only defeats were against the Lions (9-1) and Rams (5-5). They lost 31-29 to Detroit on a last-second field goal and, on a quick turnaround to fly to the West Coast four days later, couldn’t keep up with the Rams.
Meanwhile, the Bears have trudged through a four-game losing streak that got so bleak they fired offensive coordinator Shane Waldron last week.
Every opponent starts by making a plan for Jefferson, who needs 88 yards Sunday to hit 1,000 in each of his first five seasons. And the Bears won’t simply stick Pro Bowl cornerback Jaylon Johnson on him for the day because they keep their corners on specific sides of the field regardless of where the receivers line up.
They also have a strong No. 2 receiver in Jordan Addison, two-time Pro Bowl tight end T.J. Hockenson and former Packers 1,000-yard running back Aaron Jones.
Defensively, free agent pickup linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel is sixth in the league with eight sacks and has two interceptions, cornerback Byron Murphy has four picks and the collective unit is second in the NFL with 21 takeaways.
That side of the ball is run by renowned defensive coordinator Brian Flores, a strategic mastermind. He learned under Bill Belichick, and it shows.
“You can definitely see it,” Bears coach Matt Eberflus said Friday. “The way they utilize their fronts is very similar to what New England used to do.”
Flores, like Belichick, is brilliant at disguising his defense. Everyone knows he’s the league’s most blitz-heavy defensive play caller, but every week he surprises them nonetheless. It’s incredibly difficult for veteran quarterbacks to decode when and how he’s going to do it, let alone Bears rookie Caleb Williams.
Coach Kevin O’Connell, meanwhile, has proven to be everything the Bears mistakenly believed they were getting when they hired Matt Nagy in 2018: a steady hand, a quarterback whisperer and an incredibly savvy play caller.
“You can see a guy that is adaptable and adjustable and very creative in the way he calls a game,” Eberflus said. “That’s why he's had success.”
O’Connell inherited Kirk Cousins in 2022, and the Vikings rolled to 13-4 and an NFC North title. When Cousins tore his Achilles last season, O’Connell patched it together with two journeymen and a rookie drafted in the fifth round and had the team 7-6 in December before it ran out of gas and finished 7-10.
Now, with rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy — the No. 10 pick — declared out for the season in August with a knee injury, he has brought out by far the best play of Darnold’s career.
It must drive the Bears crazy seeing how easy it looks everywhere else.
Darnold, already on his fourth team at 27, is ninth in the NFL in passer rating (100.0), 10th in completion percentage (67.9) and fifth in touchdown passes (19).
The downside to Darnold is that O’Connell hasn’t cured the interception problem that derailed his career in the first place — he has 10, second-most in the league — and he’s been shaky lately. After racing into MVP candidacy to begin the season, Darnold slipped with two interceptions against the Colts in Week 8 and three the next week against the Jaguars.
The Vikings certainly have flaws, but they’re rock solid compared to how the Bears have looked this season.
