Friday mailbag: The Vikings aren't gonna lose to the Bears, are they?

The Vikings return home to face an opponent they can beat, which naturally makes some fans nervous

Sign up for Purple Insider for $7 per month or $64 per year to get credentialed access inside the Vikings, from in-depth analysis to behind-the-scenes features to the ever-popular Friday Mailbag. Photo courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings

---

By Matthew Coller

Happy Friday everyone! It seems like the season is already flying by… only two more games until the bye week. Some Vikings fans seem a little nervous for this one and others are very confident so let’s dive in and see where they should stand…

@youvikethat1 Do you have a favorite Bears-Vikings game? Either covering it or an old one on YouTube?

Of all the wild rides that the Bears and Vikings have put their fans through, the craziest might be the 2008 game that ended 48-41. It’s a back ‘n forth game with Gus Frerotte was out there throwing the ball all over the place. He got picked four times that day and still scored 41. Nuts. Big plays everywhere. Adrian Peterson had a 54-yard touchdown, Marty Booker had a 51-yard TD catch for the Bears. I was reminded of this game when Geno Smith and Jared Goff had their shootout last week.

Bears-Vikings in ‘94 was so good. Warren Moon threw 48 passes and came back from down 24-16 in the third quarter to win. Moon hit Cris Carter for the walkoff TD. Both teams were 8-5 and battling for playoff position. The atmosphere in the Dome looked like it was insane.

I’m not kidding when I say that I don’t believe I’ve covered a great Bears-Vikings game. The 2017 Case Keenum win was huge for them but it’s hard to put the image of Sam Bradford hobbling around out of my mind. The 2020 game at US Bank Stadium was close but I wouldn’t say it was a great contest. Two meaningless final games of the year. Nick Foles, the 17-9 game last year. Yeesh.

@KAAAAAHN_tk421 How much of the Vikings issues are due to learning new offensive/defensive systems, and how much do you think the bye week will help them clean things up?

The fundamental question here is how much we think can be cleaned up and how much is simply going to remain a problem. Over the next two weeks that should be more clear. There are some things that I’m not sure will change very much because of personnel. Interior pressure is going to keep happening. Cousins is still going to be Cousins when it comes to some of the times where he doesn’t trust a look and dunks it underneath. The secondary is still going to have its weak spots and the pressure on opposing QBs isn’t going to get vastly better. But when you see on tape the number of times a Vikings receiver should have had a chance at a chunk play, you have to think they start connecting on those eventually.

@MichaelSenn10 Since this Bears team is clearly less talented than the Vikings, how much would you say we lose by?

Having been in the building while a 5-1 Vikings team went into Soldier Field and lost to the 1-6 Bears, I’m never going to say that the Vikings are a total lock against Chicago. Every year there seems to be a loss that comes as a complete shock — most notably the 2018 against Buffalo and last season against the winless Lions. In a way, this game with no real intrigue has a test built in: Can you avoid the letdown game? I tend to think that they will but I’m not going to dismiss the possibility until they show that there’s no letdowns in this team. Also: I’m sorry for all the pain Vikings-Bears has caused you.

@HollandJohnD Fill in the blanks: “This 2022 Vikings squad most reminds me of the [year] [any NFL team].”

First team that came to mind was the 2009 Texans. Matt Schaub pretty much just threw the ball to Andre Johnson all the time and they ended up 10th in scoring. Their running game and defense weren’t very impressive but they were innovative in the passing game with Kyle Shanahan on Gary Kubiak’s staff as the offensive coordinator. Schaub is a pretty good Kirk comparison. He threw some picks but had good accuracy when things are right and wasn’t a special athlete. It was a bit of a rollercoaster for that team too. They lost four in a row and then won four in a row in the final eight games. I’m pretty sure the early returns in the first four games are that it’s going to be a lot of close games again. #DoubleDoink.

@headcoach21 Do you feel that if there was any year for the Vikings to make the the Super Bowl it would be this year?? A lot of Meh teams in the NFC

I definitely see where you’re coming from with this — the schedule is favorable and there’s only a couple teams in the NFC that you wouldn’t consider middling to bad. But I’m not even close to making that declaration yet about this Vikings team. We’re going to see teams separate themselves in the coming weeks. The Eagles are an absolute house. San Francisco has very few weaknesses and a QB who has taken them places before. Unless Tom Brady quits midseason, I’m not counting that man out from going on a run and making Tampa Bay a scary team. I’m also not dismissing the possibility of Green Bay getting on a roll. How about Dallas? A team that wins like that with a backup QB can’t be overlooked. The Vikings need to take care of these wins that we’re all giving them in advance i.e. Chicago, Arizona, Washington etc. and then pull an upset against somebody good along the way, then we can start looking at how they stack up to the best teams in the NFC.

@J_B_ROSE Are you surprised at how big Dalvin’s role still is? Coming into this year I thought Mattison and also Kene would be more involved offensively.

I am, yes. Dalvin is one of the best NFL players of the last five years but I’m not sure that running him 20 times per game is the answer for the 2022 version. Mattison has succeeded every time he’s been in this year and Nwangwu has special burst that could get them a big play here and there. I can see where there’s a tendency to lean on the Pro Bowler but the present situation probably calls for mixing it up more.

Roxie via email: Have a 2 part question for your Friday Mailbag if you need it! Press Conference Questions! 1- from your time covering the Vikings, who has been your favorite player to report on due to their press conference persona? 2-aside from KOC, what new Vikings personnel have you most liked reporting on this 2022 year (player or coach) and why?

So…press conferences and talking one-on-one at a player’s locker are two different categories in regards to interviewing players. We have a really good crop of “podium players” at the moment. Those are the guys who talk every week and have the challenge of knowing all their comments are streaming on social media. Thielen, Jefferson and Peterson are all willing to be straight forward in front of the crowd, which is appreciated. And each of them is available outside of the press conferences as well. As far as all-timers off to the side, Terence Newman and Latavius Murray were both incredibly insightful players. The biggest thing is trying to learn from them and each was willing to break something down and help us better convey it to you guys.

As far as new players go, Harrison Phillips has a really friendly demeanor. I credit Jalen Reagor for answering every question about his return to Philly. Matt Daniels takes the cake for coaches but Wes Phillips will always take time to teach something, which is cool. The bottom line is: The idea that these folks only give cliches when chatting with the media couldn’t be any farther from the truth.

@vf10281 If Jaylon Johnson doesn't play talk me me into the Vikings playing a close game against this team especially since the Bears can't stop the run at all.

The formula is there for the Vikings to have a bad day against the Bears. If they come out sluggish after the London trip and struggle to get the passing game going, turn the ball over a couple times and then have major issues against Chicago’s running game the door is open. Like last year against Cleveland where the Browns just grinded them down. I don’t think it will happen because of the large disparity in roster talent but Matt Eberflus gave Cousins fits the last time he saw this style defense in Indy in 2020. It’s the NFL, ya never know.

@scapar100 Complete this sentence, the NFL should consider _______________ Europe.

Bringing back NFL Europe? Go Rhein Fire. In all seriousness, maybe it would be a little more accepted now and lots of NFL players got chances over there to develop. How many opportunities are there for QBs to actually get playing time if they aren’t the starter? Three preseason games and that’s that. Maybe Geno Smith’s second wind will bring back some love for the developmental QB.

@TommyDRealty Is the Vikings new offensive system already antiquated because so many other teams run it? I mean even the Rams are struggling with it. Perhaps NFL defenses have seen it so much that it's becoming easy to defend.

There’s probably some truth there, yeah. It’s like how everyone thought that the league would be overtaken by RPOs after the Eagles won and… it wasn’t. There’s always a cat-and-mouse game going on and it seems like the league has found some answers, like using five-man fronts or adjusting assignments to handle pre-snap motions. But when I watched the Vikings’ film from the last two weeks I saw lots of opportunities to get more completions and big plays. Another thing that’s interesting is the performances of Goff/Stafford when they had elite O-lines in the McVay offense vs. when they have below average O-line play. It seems the slow-developing stuff requires great blocking up front and I’m not sure that’s going to be the case for the Vikings on the interior this year. It’s a great question though and something to consider — maybe there will need to be adaptations from KOC as the season goes along.

@BigGameGradeA27 How can our line generate more pressure, fancy blitz's, more stunts, what Matt? We can give these QBs this much time with an aged secondary (PP & HS).

Pro-Football Reference has the Vikings blitzing at the sixth lowest rate in the NFL and that probably has to change a little, particularly when they are rotating defensive linemen. If Bullard/Lynch/Jones/Wonnum are out there, they aren’t going to get after QBs by themselves. But I’m not sure there’s an easy answer. They really have to hope that Danielle Hunter gets more comfortable as the season goes along and that easier matchups allow him to have some of his typical dominant games. I’m still in the camp of believing that blitzing too much is going to leave the corners one-on-one and that’s problematic. Except against the Bears. They should really go after the Bears.

@icepick2022 With 7 home games left (seems crazy) and road games including Chicago, Washington, and Detroit, is it time for you and Murph to change your season win predictions?

Oh definitely not. Murph went with nine games and I said 10 wins. Right now their expected win-loss (via Pro-Football Ref) is 2.2-1.8, which is somewhere around that 8-10 win range over a season. PFF’s power ranking tool, which is based on data not vibes, has them at 10.1 wins over the full season. This team has a long way to go in order to prove that they won’t be some down moments along the way. Heck, they were a hair away vs. Detroit and New Orleans from disappointing losses. Those are going to happen along the way. Still, PFF has them at 70% to make the playoffs and I agree with that.

@OldNorse KOC suggested that he would try to get his QB to play with a ‘quiet mind.’ To what extent has the new system quieted Kirk’s mind?

It doesn’t look like that has been the case. There’s no changing who Cousins is at this point. Many systems have been tried, nothing has been different. That doesn’t mean it won’t improve. I think it will get better over the season. We’re going to have one of those 320 yard, four-touchdown games soon and declare that the offense is magical and then it’ll be followed up with 201 yards on 40 attempts. The key has always been finding a way to win games where things aren’t going his way. They’ve done that so far.