On her latest Making Monsters podcast, Taylor Doll previews the Week 2 matchup between the Chicago Bears and the Minnesota Vikings with longtime friend of the show, Tyler Forness, who covers the Vikings for A to Z Sports, and also with our guy, Bears Over Beers cohost Bryan Orenchuk.
They kick things off by going over the Kyler Murray injury and what it means with Carson Wentz starting at quarterback. The Vikes have a slew of weapons, so they talk about those as well, the running back room without
the injured Jordan Mason. They also dive into the Brian Flores blitz-heavy defense and whether he will approach Ben Johnson and Caleb Williams the same way he did Green Bay’s offense.
As for the Bears, they discuss how the secondary can slow down Justin Jefferson, T.J. Hockenson, and company, and if the Bears defense can get after Wentz. They also look at the Bears’ offense and how it matches up with Minny’s defense.
But back to the Vikings and defensive coordinator Brian Flores’ blitzing trends in his four games against Caleb Williams. Taylor asked Tyler if he thinks Minnesota would blitz as much this week as he did last week at home against Jordan Love and the Packers, and here’s what he said.
“That’s where things get really interesting,” Forness said on the podcast. “I did pull up some stats trying to figure out what does this look like. At Soldier Field facing Caleb Williams, Brian Flores is blitzing 44.4% and 40.9% of the time. At US Bank Stadium, 60% and 77.8% of the time. I think some of that has to do with the playing surface and maybe not having faith, but just not trying to put the back-end defenders in as many negative spots because so much of what they do is communication on the back end, and maneuvering and showing one look and then going to another. And with the playing surface, it’s just a lot harder to do some of those things with the change of direction. So, I think you’re going to see a little bit less of the overall blitzing.”
Make sure you check out Taylor’s show in either of the embeds below for her Bears vs. Vikings preview!
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