Game one of the Ben Johnson era started pretty good, but the penalties caught up with them, and they couldn’t hold off a strong charging Minnesota Vikings team, ultimately losing 27 to 24. The Vikings showed exactly why they were coming off a 14-win campaign, and led by the 2024 Coach of the Year, Kevin O’Connell, and unfortunately, Ben Johnson showed that he’ll have some growing pains to work through as a head coach.
The Bears left some points on the field, the special teams units struggled, the offense
lost its way, and the defense fell apart. It was a three-phase loss to kick off the 2025 season, but it was the kickoff of the 2025 season. If the Bears are still doing this in October, then I’ll be concerned, but it’s week one, so let’s see how Ben Johnson circles the wagons.
In the game, Chicago outgained Minnesota (317 to 254) and had more first downs (20 to 14), but neither team was good on third downs as each went 3 for 12.
But in the fourth quarter, where the Vikes outscored the Bears 21 to 7, they had 169 yards to Chicago’s 63, 9 first downs to Chicago’s 7, and converted 3 of 4 of their third down tries.
The Bears were penalized 12 times for 127 yards while the Vikings were flagged 8 times for 50. Those 12 penalties by Chicago were their most since also having 12 on November 8, 2021, in a 29 to 27 loss in Pittsburgh.
Let’s look at the Bears’ playing time breakdowns and a few individual stats from the game.
OFFENSE
Caleb Williams started a career-best 10 for 10, but he got out of rhythm and ended up completing just 11 of his final 25 passes (44%). He had a few bad misses, but none worse than missing a wide open DJ Moore for what would have been a touchdown. His scrambling ability helped the offense quite a bit, and he picked up the first touchdown of his career.
D’Andre Swift had a couple of nice runs, but he wasn’t consistent. In the first and fourth quarters combined, he had 5 runs for 0 yards.
DEFENSE
Noah Sewell led the Bears with 9 tackles in his first career start.
Tremaine Edmunds had 7 tackles and 1 pass defended.
Chicago had three sacks, with one each from Gervon Dexter Sr., Dayo Odeyingbo, and Tanoh Kpassagnon.
Nashon Wright had a 74-yard pick-6.
SPECIAL TEAMS*
*The above image has players who only played in the third phase.
Cairo Santos hit a 42-yard field goal, and he made all 3 extra points. However, he missed a 50-yard field goal and failed to kick the ball out of the end zone on his kickoff with 2:02 left on the clock.
Tory Taylor had 6 punts for a 44.3 yard average (33.0 net), with 1 inside the twenty.
Daniel Hardy had 3 total special teams tackles, and rookie Ruben Hyppolite had 2 tackles in the third phase and another on defense.
Rookie Luther Burden had a 44-yard kickoff return.
To check out the complete Bears vs. Vikings box score, I find that ESPN has an easy-to-navigate site. Hit that link if you want to see all the game’s numbers.
All statistics and snap counts, as well as the accompanying pictures, are taken directly from the NFL’s Game Statistic and Information System.
