Kent Bewley's News Story Collection

On Sun, Sept 20, the Minnesota Vikings faced the Chicago Bears in a Week 2 NFC North matchup at Soldier Field. The Vikings were coming off a sensational victory over the Green Bay Packers where Carson Wentz led the team back from down 12 points after Kyler Murray suffered a concussion in the first quarter. With Murray still being in the concussion protocol, he was ruled out for this game, meaning Wentz would get his sixth start wearing a purple jersey. Wentz faced off against a Bears team that defeated the Carolina Panthers 59-37 in their season opener. Chicago had set historic marks in terms of rushing yards and rushing TDs in a season opener and with Caleb Williams at QB, the sky seemed to be the limit for the defending division champions. But with the Vikings coming to town, the Bears had a reason to be afraid as Minnesota had won six consecutive games at Soldier Field entering this Week 2 matchup. A couple of those wins were close ones, including an overtime thriller in Nov 2024 and a come from behind victory led by J.J McCarthy in Week 1 of last season on Monday night football. Now, Wentz would be tasked with trying to lead the Vikings to victory and the Brian Flores defense would have to contain Williams and the electric Bears offense.

The conditions were windy and rainy in the Windy City, with the field being wet. The game started with Minnesota winning the coin toss and electing to receive the ball. The first possession started at the 28-yard line and Wentz handed the ball off to Aaron Jones, who gained eight yards. On 2nd down, Wentz threw his first pass of the game and launched it deep to the left, where Justin Jefferson made an outstanding catch at the Chicago 34-yard line for a gain of 30 yards. A good first pass by Wentz there. After throwing an incomplete pass, Wentz found Jordan Addison, who picked up six yards and on third down Wentz threw it to T.J Hockenson, who caught the ball up the middle for a gain of seven and a first down. On the next set of downs, Wentz got flustered and threw a couple of incomplete passes. The field goal unit came on and Will Reichard made a 35-yard kick to put the Vikings on the board first.

The Bears’ first drive started from the 31-yard line and Williams threw a pass to D’Andre Swift for seven yards. On 2nd down, Williams picked the ball up after botching the snap and scrambled with it all the way into Minnesota territory for a first down. Swift then ran the ball three times in a row and picked up a first down. The Vikings’ defense managed to contain the Chicago offense and a holding penalty held the Bears back. After Williams was pushed out of bounds on a third down scramble, the field goal unit for Chicago came out and Cairo Santos attempted a 50-yard kick that was almost blocked by Isaiah Rodgers and it was good. The score was tied at 3 apiece as both teams had settled for a field goal on their respective opening drives.

The next Minnesota drive was badly executed as a couple of rushing attempts by Jones were ruined by a bad snap by Blake Brandel on third down where Wentz had to slid down and get the ball for a recovered fumble. On fourth down, Brett Thorson booted the ball to the Chicago 42, where it was fair caught by Kalif Raymond. The Bears were set back by a false start penalty by Garrett Bradbury, who was facing his former team for the first time. Williams completed a short pass to Colston Loveland and after a couple of odd penalties, on third and long, he attempted to throw the ball on a scramble out of the pocket. But when Williams threw the ball, it went way off target from Luther Burden III and was intercepted by Byron Murphy Jr, who had his first pick of the season. Off the interception from Murphy, the Wentz offense did nothing but go three and out. Thorson had another good punt that landed inside the 20-yard line this time.

The first quarter ended and the second quarter began with the Vikings stopping Williams on a third down incomplete pass. The next drive for the offense began at the 36-yard line and Wentz threw an incomplete pass again on first down. Following a six-yard run from Jones, on third down, Wentz threw a ball up the middle and Jefferson made the catch for a good gain of 16 yards. The first down was awarded and would have been if Jefferson had dropped the ball due to there being an illegal hands to the face foul on Jaylon Johnson. Jones then ran for seven yards on first down but got stopped on second and third downs. On fourth and short, Kevin O’Connell decided to go for it and Wentz pushed his way through the trenches for a gain of two yards for a first down. The Chicago defense stopped the offense at that point as Wentz threw a short pass to Demond Claiborne on third down for the rookie running back’s first career touch in the NFL. The field goal unit came out for Minnesota and Reichard made a 49-yard kick to give the Vikings a 6-3 lead.

Halfway through the second quarter, the Bears went on a long drive where Williams completed a few passes and was also hit by Dallas Turner in the helmet for a roughing the passer foul. The Vikings’ defense stopped Swift on three straight runs and on fourth down, Ben Johnson decided to keep his offense on the field to go for it from three yards away from the line to gain. On the play, Williams threw a short pass that was caught by Swift, who was tackled by Harrison Smith and he attempted to reach the ball out over the line before he went down. The officials ruled that the ball was at the 30-yard line of Minnesota for a first down for Chicago. O’Connell didn’t agree with the ruling and threw a challenge flag on the field. After the review, the ruling on the field was upheld and the Vikings lost the challenge. On the next play, Williams threw a completion to rookie tight end Sam Roush, but there was a flag on the field for an illegal shift on Chicago. More penalties ensued for the Bears as Bradbury got called for offensive holding and Williams got called for intentional grounding after he threw the ball while getting brought down by Eric Wilson. The drive stalled out and after the two-minute warning, Chicago had to punt.

The Vikings were pinned deep in their territory and couldn’t do much in their end of half drive. When the Bears got the ball back, there were only 20 seconds left and after calling their final timeout of the half, Williams got blitzed by Turner sacked by Andrew Van Ginkel to conclude the half. The game was lower-scoring thus far than a lot of people expected with the rain falling mostly hard on the field. The defenses had clearly taken over the game as the Vikings’ defense was containing Williams while the Chicago defense was doing well against Wentz, who was trying to remain steady while under pressure. Having led two scoring drives, Wentz was at least helping the team keep the edge on the scoreboard while doing his best to fill in as a backup QB. The second half would definitely see a shift in strategy on the offensive side of the ball for both division rivals.

The Bears got the ball first to start the second half and they began running the ball down the throats of the Minnesota defense. After Williams scrambled for a first down into Vikings’ territory, Kyle Monongai ran the ball on three straight plays and he picked up two first downs that went into the red zone. After a couple of unproductive plays, on third down, Williams threw a ball to the left that was caught by Raymond, who got both feet down in bounds and picked up the first down inside the one-yard line. With them being on the verge of scoring a touchdown, Chicago felt inclined to run the ball. On first and goal, Swift got the ball and was looking to get into the end zone, but the ball got punched out by Jalen Redmond and it was a fumble. Rodgers recovered the ball as the Brian Flores defense had procured a clutch turnover when it was needed the most. A big missed opportunity from the Bears to take control of the game.

The Vikings were unable to do anything significant off the fumble recovery as after a 20-yard run by Jones and a couple of carries by DeeJay Dallas, Wentz got sacked on third down. Thorson had another good punt that went inside the Bears’ 20-yard line and the defense resumed blitzing Williams, who got sacked by Turner on the first play of the new drive. However, a good run by Monongai and a scramble by Williams picked up a first down for Chicago. The Vikings managed to stop the Bears on the next set of downs and a punt by Troy Taylor traveled a far 63 yards and Myles Price managed to run for 11 yards on the return.

Wentz tried to do something good as he completed a short pass to Josh Oliver, who ran for a gain of 24 yards and a first down. However, Wentz got sacked again on a third down and another punt occurred before the end of the third quarter. The Bears couldn’t move the ball very far and were stopped on a third down incomplete pass by Williams to begin the fourth quarter. The Minnesota offense went three-and out on their next drive as a Wentz short pass play to Dallas came up a little short of the line to gain. The next drive for Chicago began at the 33-yard line with a little under 13 minutes left in regulation.

The drive for the Bears started with a couple of runs by Swift and then Williams passed the ball off to Swift, who ran for a massive gain of 32 yards for a first down. Now in field goal range, Chicago got back into the red zone on a big completion by Williams to Rome Odunze for 15 yards and then after an incomplete pass, Williams dumped the ball off to Monongai, who gained seven yards on the play. On third down, Monongai picked up two yards and on fourth down, Johnson decided to keep his offense on the field to go for it. Williams handed the ball off swiftly to Monongai, who ran for two yards and a first down. On the next play, Williams attempted to run the ball into the end zone but he went down on a slide and was in serious pain. On the watery turf of Soldier Field, Williams stayed down for a bit and got back up. But when he did, Williams couldn’t stand straight and needed assistance from the medical staffers on the Bears’ sideline to walk off into the injury tent. As Williams got carted off, Tyson Bagent was the backup QB for Chicago and he came in for 2nd & goal, where he threw a short one-yard pass to Swift. On third & goal, Bagent attempted to throw another pass, but it was incomplete into the end zone. On fourth & goal, the Bears’ field goal unit came onto the field to try and tie the game. It was going to be a seemingly easy kick in spite of the wet turf for Santos, who would be kicking the ball from 23 yards out. The ball was snapped and was held down by the holder Taylor, with Santos going forward to kick the ball up. But Isaiah Rodgers came in from the side and jumped up to deflect the kick. The ball went off the back of a Bears blocker and the kick was no good. An amazing blocked kick by Rodgers, who had blocked a field goal attempt in a Week 3 game against the Cincinnati Bengals last season. Another missed red zone chance from Chicago, which had to worry about the health of their franchise QB.

The next Vikings’ drive began with two consecutive rushes by Jones, who gained five yards on one run and no yards on the other. But on third down, Wentz threw the ball to Addison, who caught the ball for a big gain of 15 yards and a first down. On the next play from scrimmage, there was a foul on Bears’ safety Tyrique Stevenson, who was called for defensive holding while covering Jefferson. The clock was under four minutes now and after a run for no gain by Jones, Wentz passed the ball to T.J Hockenson, who gained 19 yards for a huge first down. Johnson started calling his timeouts to preserve time for Bagent. Jones ran the ball two consecutive times and one of them was five yards long while the other was 15 yards for a first down. Johnson called his final two timeouts after those runs and with under three minutes to go, the Vikings could have put the game to bed with one more first down before the two-minute warning. But Jones was stuffed on two straight runs before the two-minute warning and on third down, Wentz threw a short pass to Hockenson for three yards. Hockenson went down in bounds as the clock kept running. O’Connell called a timeout with 1:13 on the clock and the field goal unit came out to extend the lead. Reichard attempted a 39-yard kick and it was good as Minnesota had gone up 9-3. But Chicago had one last chance to win the game and a backup QB of theirs had to somehow get the ball downfield to put them in position to win it with a touchdown.

The ensuing kick return by Zavion Thomas went all the way to the Bears’ 35-yard line. The drive started with Bagent completing a short pass to Burden for six yards out of bounds and in shotgun formation on the next play, Bagent found Burden again and this time for a big gain of 18. Burden was taken down in bounds for a first down, with the Chicago players hurrying up to the line of scrimmage. Bagent spiked the ball with 38 seconds left in regulation and on the next play, he threw a deep pass to Odunze, who made the catch and went out of bounds at the Vikings’ 20-yard line for a first down. In the red zone, Bagent passed the ball to Burden, who was tackled down in bounds by James Pierre. With the clock still running, Bagent got another play organized and attempted to throw the ball to the left side of the end zone, but Rodgers caught the ball. However, when he came down with the ball, Rodgers was ruled to have both or one of his feet out of bounds and it was an incomplete pass. The replay officials took a second look at the play to see if Rodgers’ heels might have been above the white out of bounds boundary. After the review, the ruling on the field was upheld and the Bears got a second chance. With six seconds left, on third down, Bagent threw a pass towards Colston Loveland, who dived to get the ball and it was incomplete. But there was still one second left on the clock for a fourth down play for Chicago. Before the pivotal game-deciding play, O’Connell called a timeout and the defense got organized. On the play, Bagent took the snap and dropped back to pass. But closing in on him in the pocket was Dallas Turner, who grabbed Bagent and brought him down for the game-ending sack. The Vikings had successfully conquered Chicago for the seventh year in a row as they defeated the Bears on their home field in September once again.

This game was a defensive grinder, through-and-through, and the Brian Flores defense did a remarkable job at containing Williams while he was in the game and made one last stand against Bagent on the final drive. Even though there were no touchdowns scored in the game, Wentz led three stellar scoring drives that ended with Reichard field goals, including the last one that went off an upright and through the goalpost. Starting in place of Murray, Wentz completed 11 of his 20 passes for 143 yards and was sacked three times. It is likely that Murray will return next week against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from a concussion, but Wentz proved his worth as a backup QB if he is ever needed in an emergency situation again. The offense was definitely boosted by the running game of Aaron Jones, who in a more central role carried the ball 23 times for 105 yards. The three “Sons” who made the bulk of catches were Jefferson(3 rec, 55 yards), Hockenson(3 rec, 29 yards), and Addison(2 rec, 21 yards). The defensive stars of the game were undoubtedly Murphy, Redmond and Rodgers, who all made game-saving plays when they mattered the most in preventing Chicago from scoring. And this victory was the first one where the Vikings did not score a touchdown of any kind since Nov 10, 2024 against the Jacksonville Jaguars when John Parker Romo made four field goals to win the game 12-7. This was also the first time that Minnesota did not score in double-figures in a win since a nasty 3-0 road victory over the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 14 of the 2023 season.

The Vikings find themselves atop the NFC North standings through the first two weeks of the season with two valuable wins against divisional opponents. Chicago falls to 1-1 and Williams’ status is unknown as he will need a scan on that injured hamstring of his. With the rest of the division at 1-1, Minnesota will play a second consecutive road game next week as they travel south to take on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who are 0-2 after suffering two losses to AFC North opponents to begin their season on a tough note. The Vikings will face off against Baker Mayfield, who has beaten them in two previous meetings. For now, they are off to their second 2-0 start in three seasons and with a sturdy offense and powerfully clutch defense, the sky is the limit for this team. Some fine-tuning at the QB position is all this Minnesota Vikings squad really needs in order to go on a big run later in this season.