Every team has a game where seemingly everything goes wrong. For the Chicago Bears, that game happened on Sunday afternoon at rainy Soldier Field.
And to make matters worse, the Bears lost starting QB Caleb Williams for the foreseeable future. Luckily, his injury prognosis looks a lot better now (“week to week”) than it did in the immediate moments after Williams went down while running for what would have been the go-ahead touchdown.
Just one week after scoring a team record opening week 59 points,
the Bears couldn’t even muster a touchdown against their rivals from the north country. The much-talked about Brian Flores Minnesota Vikings defense lived up to its reputation and then some, and the horrible weather conditions certainly didn’t hamper Minnesota’s efforts. The conditions certainly took away some of the Bears air attack, and the team struggled to do much else. Especially when it came to executing in the red zone.
Needless to say, after fumbling a would-be touchdown on the one yard line, last week’s game ball recipient D’Andre Swift isn’t going to repeat this week.
Let’s get to the game balls.
Offense Game Ball: RB Kyle Monangai
Considering the 3 point offensive output, there’s very little to celebrate here.
Caleb Williams was a magician throughout most of the game, causing Vikings defenders to miss him left and right in the backfield.
But he was routinely under pressure against the Vikings defense and had very little success throwing the ball through the steady rain that lasted for the entire game. And unfortunately, he also threw his first interception of the season during the first quarter.
Swift actually led the team in receiving and was just two yards behind leading rusher Kyle Monangai, though Swift had a putrid 2.8 YPC for his efforts. And that fumble on the one yard line was a backbreaker. Monangai should have been running the ball on the goal line.
And with that, we’re going with Monangai as our game ball recipient. He rushed the ball 10 times for 47 yards (4.7 YPC) and caught two passes for 11 yards. He ran hard throughout, and it would have been nice to see him get more opportunities when the Bears were close to the end zone.
Defense Game Ball: LB TJ Edwards
The Bears defense, fresh off of giving up 37 points to the Carolina Panthers, looked much better this week against the Vikings. Of course, the weather certainly didn’t hurt matters.
WR Justin Jefferson was mostly a non-factor, catching the ball just three times for 55 yards, and 30 of those yards came on a completion during the Vikings’ first possession. All of Jefferson’s catches came in the first half.
I thought linebacker T.J. Edwards showed up the most in crucial situations on Sunday, twice making diving, shoe-string tackles on plays that could have been much bigger gains for Minnesota. While his stat line doesn’t pop off the box score (4 tackles, 2 solo), it’ more about the situations where he made those stops. He had no missed tackles and was great in coverage.
The two tackles below were the aforementioned crucial stops. The first, early in the second quarter, had Edwards catching Vikings WR Demond Claiborne on a 3rd and long with a lot of green in front of the runner had Edwards missed. The second features Edwards stopping RB DeeJay Dallas on a 3rd and long early in the fourth quarter that almost resulted in a conversion.
Bryan Orenchuk and myself will have plenty to say about this game this week on a new episode of Bears Over Beers on Wednesday evening. It will be available on the 2nd City Gridiron YouTube channel or via your favorite podcasting platform. Our 2nd City Gridiron Podcast Channel is available on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, Audacy, and other popular podcast platforms.
Who would have received your game balls? Let us know in the comments section below.
