By Brian Murphy
Logistics are the lifeblood of youth hockey travel, especially when tackling Chicago traffic as it corkscrews unpredictably through the Loop, the suburbs and the Windy City’s infinite exurbs.
Timing is vital when the old man is white-knuckling I-90 west through a downpour and threading a viewing needle that had him handing off the keys to my wife for the stretch drive into Minnesota just as the Vikings and Bears were kicking off in the slop 100 miles behind us.
As rain pounded the freeway midday Sunday, rural Wisconsin became a digital desert with only buffering access to homers calling the Packers game against the Jets in the Meadowlands. Instead of chewing glass, I called an analog audible, retrieving the paperback from the floorboard and declaring the 3-hour drive a Vikings news blackout until the old man could dig into a replay from the couch.
But the texts from all corners kept chirping, as did my 15-year-old son, who must’ve barked “this game is insane!” a half-dozen times from his air-podded backseat before we finally pulled into the driveway just after 3:30 p.m.
I half expected to witness another Minneapolis Miracle. Justin Jefferson climbing his stairway to heaven in Buffalo. Or Carson Wentz walking off the Bears with some spackled-together magic at Soldier Field.
Never thought I would fast-forward 90 minutes through the most compelling 9-3 Vikings triumph you may ever see. A sandpaper win that leaves them undefeated with two division victories and a longtime rival suddenly contemplating life without its long-lost franchise quarterback.
Two weeks into the season, Minnesota is 2-0 behind a backup quarterback, boasting a defense that increasingly looks capable of carrying this team while the rest of the operation figures itself out.
“Whatever it took,” head coach Kevin O’Connell said afterward.
Style points mean nothing when you’re caked in mud and the satisfaction of vanquishing two division foes while shutting down two dynamic quarterbacks in the process. O’Connell’s newfound commitment to the run game and winning ugly has the Vikings in the driver’s seat in the ultra-competitive NFC North despite winning without a touchdown Sunday while their reclamation quarterback, Kyler Murray, has played all of 11 snaps because of a concussion.
This wasn’t football so much as survival theater, a soggy back-and-forth of self-inflicted misery by Chicago and opportunistic playmaking by the Vikings, particularly Flores’ merry band of agitators.
The Bears came in after scoring 59 points and piling up 552 yards in their Week 1 win over Carolina. Against Minnesota, they managed 297 yards, three points and zero touchdowns while committing eight penalties for 58 yards, including seven in the first half alone.
The Vikings didn’t need Wentz to be spectacular. They needed him to protect the football, complete a few passes when the moment demanded it and bequeath the game to that foaming-at-the-mouth defense.
Wentz completed 11 of 20 passes for 143 yards. Jefferson caught just three passes for 55 yards. But Aaron Jones carried 23 times for 105 hard-earned yards. And Will Reichard bagged three field goals, including one favorable doink, downpour be damned.
Complementary football at its finest, when it mattered most.
Minnesota ran the ball when the rain made passing an adventure. The defense intercepted Caleb Williams, forced D’Andre Swift’s goal-line fumble and blocked a field goal that would have tied the game late.
Isaiah Rodgers was everywhere. So was Dallas Turner.
The third-year edge rusher harassed Williams throughout the afternoon, then finished the job against Bagent with his second sack of the day and fourth quarterback hit.
“DT just keeps showing up,” O’Connell said.
That may be the emerging identity of the 2026 Vikings.
Show up. Make the play. Move on. There was plenty of evidence Sunday.
Byron Murphy Jr. intercepted Williams in the first quarter. Jalen Redmond punched the ball away from Swift at the Minnesota 1-yard line, and Rodgers recovered. Later, Rodgers came screaming off the edge to block Cairo Santos’ 23-yard field goal attempt.
During last week’s lunacy against Green Bay, the Vikings trailed the Packers by 12, then scored 29 straight points. Yesterday, they scored nine points and won anyway.
They’ve now demonstrated they can win a shootout indoors and a street fight while hydroplaning. There is something strangely comforting about that as Minnesota sprints to the pole position in the NFC North while the Bears hold their breath on the severity of Williams’ right hamstring injury.
The Vikings already have banked wins over Green Bay and Chicago with a defense that has allowed only 25 points, while the Bears now face a quarterback question they didn’t have 48 hours ago.
The Packers beat the Jets in overtime to keep pace with Detroit at 1-1, but both teams look shaky. The Vikings don’t need to declare themselves anything yet. They simply need to keep stacking wins while everyone else sorts out its own mess.
With Murray still recovering, nobody is going to confuse Wentz’s performance with a quarterback master class, but he appears to have mastered his role after 100 starts.
He missed throws. He took sacks. The Vikings managed only 246 yards.
But when they absolutely needed him, Wentz found Jordan Addison for a 15-yard third-down conversion on the final Minnesota drive, helping the Vikings burn more than five minutes before Reichard drilled the 39-yarder with 1:09 remaining.
Then Chicago made one last push.
Bagent moved the Bears into Minnesota territory. Suddenly this ridiculous game was ridiculous again, with enough replay intrigue and ticking clock to keep the masses engaged with haunting visions of Michigan-Western Michigan dancing in the air.
Wentz watched it from the sideline -- drenched, wise, but confident.
“It’s never over ’til it’s over,” he said. “But I had a lot of faith in our defense stepping up the way they did, and it was fitting that Dallas Turner came off the edge to kind of seal the deal.”
And somewhere between the laundry cycles, dog walking and pizza delivery, the old man finally looked at his phone to catch up with Minnesota’s latest knowingly WTF conversation starter.
The Vikings are 2-0. They haven’t figured everything out. They don’t need to.
Not yet anyway.