Bears quarterback Caleb Williams wants the team to score points every time they have the ball and they came close to doing that against the Panthers in Week 1.
Things could be a bit tougher this week. The Bears will be hosting the Vikings and their defensive coordinator Brian Flores can make things very difficult on opposing quarterbacks. Flores can deploy a heavy load of blitzes — he sent extra rushers nearly 80 percent of the time in last Sunday’s win over Green Bay — or he can show pressure only to dial it back at the snap in an effort to confuse quarterbacks.
Williams has had mixed success against the Vikings in the past and called preparing to face a Flores-led defense a “big challenge” in his Wednesday press conference.
“It’s a game-plan defense. He’s gonna game plan from first snap to last snap,” Williams said. “Coach calls this ‘mental war’ when you go against versus him. That’s what it is. You’ve got to be able to go out there bad things are going to happen, bad things are gonna happen. You’ve got to be able to fight back and stay steady. That’s one of the biggest things is not allowing his defense and all of that to fluster you and get in your mind. That’s one of the first. You stay steady and now it’s time to go make plays and get completions and when the big ones show up, take them and find them.”
Solving whatever Flores throws his way this weekend will be crucial to the Bears’ chances of winning the game and it would show Williams’s continued development as a quarterback who can find ways to succeed in every situation that comes his way. The latter victory wouldn’t count in the standings immediately, but it would have a positive impact on that front over the long run.
Vikings Clips
The NFC offensive player of the week was a limited participant in Wednesday’s practice.
Bears running back D’Andre Swift landed in that category due to ankle and knee issues. Swift ran 18 times for 124 yards and three touchdowns in Chicago’s 59-37 win over the Panthers last Sunday.
Kyle Monangai also ran for 100 yards and a touchdown in the win. He joined Swift in the limited category as well and is listed with a hamstring injury.
Defensive lineman Neville Gallimore (illness), defensive lineman Grady Jarrett (rest), and right tackle Darnell Wright (knee) did not practice. Defensive back Malik Muhammad (ankle), defensive end Dayo Odeyingbo (shoulder), offensive tackle Ozzy Trapilo (knee), and safety Xavier Woods (groin) were listed as limited along with the two running backs.
The Vikings will not have one of their key contributors at running back for at least the next four weeks.
Head coach Kevin O’Connell said in his Wednesday press conference that Jordan Mason is being placed on injured reserve due to a thumb fracture.
O’Connell noted Mason has already undergone a procedure to repair the injury and the team does not anticipate him being out longer than the four-week IR window.
Mason had 59 yards on 15 carries with a touchdown in the season-opening victory over the Packers.
As a corresponding move, the team is signing DeeJay Dallas to the 53-man roster off of its practice squad.
Additionally, veteran back Jerome Ford has been signed to the practice squad.
There’s some positive news on the injury front for Minnesota’s starting quarterback.
Kyler Murray is set to be a limited participant in practice on Wednesday, head coach Kevin O’Connell told reporters in his press conference.
Murray is in concussion protocol after taking a hard hit while sliding early on in Sunday’s victory over the Packers.
“We’ll see how he responds and continue to rely on the medical folks in that regard,” O’Connell said. “The good thing is the amount of reps he got from obviously competing and then being named the starter, he’s got a lot of reps logged away. But, yeah, really we’re taking it kind of period-by-period as far as the plan we have. But we want to be monitoring how he’s doing from a standpoint of that limited participation.
“It’s a little bit more of a vague thing at the quarterback position, just because they’re in red jerseys anyway all the way up until game time. So we’ll kind of just deal with it as it comes to us.”
Murray was on the field for just 11 offensive snaps before exiting the contest. Carson Wentz came in and played the rest of the way, completing 12-of-19 passes for 133 yards with three touchdowns and no interceptions.
Wentz would be in line to start on Sunday against the Bears if Murray does not clear the protocol.
Bears coach Ben Johnson is done talking about his offense’s impressive Week 1 output.
When a reporter started to ask Johnson today about the Bears’ 59-37 win over the Panthers, Johnson cut off the question and said the focus is on Sunday against the Vikings.
“We haven’t put up any points this week,” Johnson said.
Johnson also brushed off talk that he was considering a two-point conversion on the Bears’ last touchdown so they could score an even 60 points.
“I said other people brought up going for two,” Johnson said.
Johnson is laser focused on this week rather than resting on his laurels from last week, and he said that’s how his players are acting at practice.
“The look in our guys’ eyes was the right look,” Johnson said.
Most casual observers of the NFL were surprised to see quarterback Carson Wentz enter Sunday’s game for the Vikings after Kyler Murray suffered a concussion on the third drive of the game. There’s another potential surprise in the pipeline.
If Wentz keeps playing well and winning, he could end up hanging onto the job even after Murray is cleared to return.
Ian Rapoport of NFL Network floated that idea on Tuesday night. And it would be a stunner; Wentz was never in the competition to start, if the competition between Murray and J.J. McCarthy was even a real competition. (It likely wasn’t.)
Last year, when Wentz was playing in place of McCarthy, who suffered an ankle sprain in Week 2, there was a sense that Wentz could keep the job even after McCarthy was ready to play. The key factor in that was simple — Wentz and receiver Justin Jefferson had a more effective in-game connection than McCarthy and Jefferson.
A season-ending injury to Wentz’s left shoulder, through which he played for multiple weeks, ended that debate. This year, a fresh debate could emerge — if Murray can’t return for Sunday’s game against the Bears and if Wentz can engineer an upset at Soldier Field.
Rapoport calls the possibility an “excellent problem.” Still, the best problem is no problem at all. It won’t be easy to manage Murray if he believes he lost his job over a concussion suffered on the third drive of the opening game of the season.
In the end, however, it’s all about winning games. If Wentz keeps winning, maybe he’ll keep playing.
Either way, the Vikings have a pair of top-two draft picks who grew up rooting for the team. Murray, for now, isn’t healthy enough to play. Wentz is. He’ll get an opportunity to extend his run if he can continue to run the offense in a way that helps Minnesota score more points than the other team.
Which, in a numbers-driven league, continues to be the only statistic that matters.
Packers quarterback Jordan Love was pressured relentlessly by the Vikings’ defense in Sunday’s 39-22 loss, and Matt LaFleur said after watching the film that the pass protection needed to be a lot better.
“I saw some of the things we have to clean up,” LaFleur said. “What’s disappointing is, we had a few protection busts that should not and cannot happen. We knew that was the challenge going in. They were gonna give some tough looks. That’s the toughest test you’re going to face Week 1, to play that defense in that environment. I thought there was some really good stuff, but when your quarterback gets hit 15 times, that’s too many times. There are some things we could do schematically that we’ve got to do a better job with and there are some things we have to go out and execute. But we have to have everybody on the same page if we want to give ourselves a chance.”
LaFleur also noted that the Packers’ passing game had several explosive plays when they took advantage of the Vikings’ blitzing. Love finished with 387 passing yards and an impressive average of 18.4 yards per completion, but ultimately the Vikings’ defense got to Love too often.
“We had some great moments when we feasted on it, certainly, but at the end of the game when we needed to make plays, they did what they do,” LaFleur said.
What the Vikings do under defensive coordinator Brian Flores is relentlessly pressure the quarterback, and that happened a lot on Sunday.
Packers safety Javon Bullard got a 15-yard penalty for the hit that knocked Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray out of Sunday’s game. Vikings right tackle Brian O’Neill thinks Bullard should have gotten more than that.
O’Neill shoved Bullard after that hit, but after the game he said he wishes he had been more aggressive toward the opponent who just gave his quarterback a concussion.
“It was so bang, bang,” O’Neill said, via ESPN. “You don’t want to freak out if you’re wrong. I was probably wrong to not freak out more than that. So I kind of wish I took a shot at him.”
Bullard easily could have been ejected for the hit, and he’ll surely at least be fined by the NFL, if not suspended. But he escaped the Vikings dishing out any justice on the field, something that O’Neill regrets about Sunday’s game.
Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray was knocked out of Sunday’s game on the team’s third offensive possession and head coach Kevin O’Connell gave an update on his condition at a Monday press conference.
O’Connell confirmed that Murray is in the concussion protocol and said that the quarterback came in feeling “pretty good” on Monday. O’Connell said that the team will take it “a day at a time” with the medical staff as Murray recovers and progresses through the protocol.
Carson Wentz replaced Murray and led the Vikings to a comeback win over the Packers on Sunday. He would be in line to start if Murray does not clear the protocol in time to face the Bears in Week 2.
More updates on Murray’s status will come once the team resumes practicing this week, but the nature of the injury and the protocol means there’s a good chance Wentz is under center on September 20.
Late in the third quarter of Sunday’s Week 1 game at U.S. Bank Stadium, the Packers controlled the game, with a 22-10 lead.
Then came the latest melting of the cheese.
The Vikings scored the final 29 points of the game, becoming the first team who trailed by 12 or more with less than 20 minutes left in a game to win by 17 or more points.
It’s the most recent example of a very troubling trend for the Packers.
In last year’s wild-card game against the Bears, the Packers led at the half, 21-3. They were then outscored 28-6 in the second half before losing 31-27.
In Week 17 against the Ravens, the Packers trailed by three points after three quarters, 27-24. The Ravens outscored Green Bay in the final 15 minutes, 14-0.
In Week 16 against the Bears, Green Bay led by 10 after three quarters, 13-3. The Packers were outscored in the fourth quarter and OT, 19-3.
In Week 15 at Denver, the Packers led 23-14 in the second half. The Broncos outscored them the rest of the way, 20-3.
Much of it relates to the absence of linebacker Micah Parsons. The offense has had a hand in it, too. As Chris Simms pointed out on Monday’s PFT Live, the Packers often empty the tank with the best stuff in their game plan early, and then they don’t have answers as the game continues.
Whatever the reason, it has become a problem for the Packers. On Sunday, it robbed them of the opportunity to wrest a road win against the division rival who had lost its starting quarterback. Instead, the Vikings staged a dramatic turnaround that will leave the Packers searching for answers.
The good news is that they play the Jets on Sunday. If the Packers blow that one, there will be nothing good about the early weeks of their season.
