With the Vikings coming off a losing season and undergoing a full reboot at quarterback, hardly anyone took them seriously going into this season. Well, look who’s 8-2 now.
The Bears will be hard-pressed to pull off an upset Sunday at Soldier Field against these Vikings, who are no joke. They have a top-five defense, one of the NFL’s best players 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 losses 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 receiving yards to hit 1,000 for a fifth consecutive season. And the Bears won’t simply stick Pro Bowl cornerback Jaylon Johnson on him because they keep their corners on specific sides of the field regardless of where the receivers line up.
The Vikes 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, linebacker Andrew Van Ginkel, a free-agent addition, has eight sacks (sixth-most in the league) and two interceptions, cornerback Byron Murphy has four picks and the unit is second in the NFL with 21 takeaways.
Minnesota’s defense is run by renowned 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 defenses. Everyone knows he’s the league’s most blitz-heavy play-caller, but every week he surprises opponents nonetheless. It’s incredibly difficult for veteran quarterbacks -— let alone a rookie such as Caleb Williams — to decode his looks.
Coach Kevin O’Connell, meanwhile, has proved to be everything the Bears mistakenly thought they were getting when they hired Matt Nagy in 2018: a steady hand, a quarterback whisperer and a savvy play-caller.
“You can see a guy who 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 a 13-4 record 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 has 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.