Quarter One
There were four stories to this quarter.
- The strip and recovery by Jonathan Owens stabilized the game for Chicago. There’s a different game script that plays out if the Vikings score easily there.
- The Bears don’t have a pass rush. Zero. Ryan Poles has so much work to do on both lines this off-season.
- The touchdown drive for the Bears was Caleb Williams’s best drive as a professional. That was superstar stuff from the kid, and continued evidence that Thomas Brown is not a coach to be thoughtlessly discarded after the season.
- Last thirty seconds of the quarter are everything wrong with Matt Eberflus as the head coach. Bad, undisciplined penalty. Inexcusable deep completion. Eberflus is the team’s primary vulnerability.
Quarter Two
- After the Keenan Allen overturn, Eberflus takes the ball out of his quarterback’s hands on fourth and short. Once again, Flus displays that he has no feel for the football game in front of him. But more importantly, it’s far more valuable long-term for Caleb TO FACE that situation. The team is going in multiple directions because the organization refuses to move on from Flus.
- If you lose a game on a blocked FG, and the next FG attempt is blocked, that is coaching, coaching, coaching. (The broadcast made this clear in their subsequent commentary.)
- Bears end up with a field goal on the final drive, after their sideline shows no urgency or command.
Vikings 14, Bears 10
Quarter Three
- First drive for Bears. Short on third down. Cairo Santos and Caleb Williams both on the field, with fifteen seconds left on the play clock. How, on earth, is that possible 12 weeks into a season?
- Interesting drive. Caleb throws an out to Swift, which Swift does not even attempt to catch. And on third down, he hits Cole Kmet in the hands, and Kmet treats the football like a live grenade. Ugly.
- DeAndre Carter just adds to the litany of inexcusable errors, letting a punt hit him after calling off his teammates. Aaron Jones coasts into the endzone, putting the Bears down two touchdowns.
- Bears finish he quarter absolutely lifeless. They know this season is cooked.
Quarter Four
- Caleb’s seven-yard scramble on fourth and four, a brilliant moment for the kid, who has played like a star today.
- If the argument made in Flus’s defense was the play of the defense, that argument no longer holds water after today’s continued third down conversions from Sam Darnold and Nick Mullens. None of these conversions even look particularly difficult. Does Flus present any scheming hurdles for the opponent? What are they?
- UNBELIEVABLE. This game is going to overtime, after a wild onside kick and one of the best throws you’ll ever see from Caleb. This game will be remembered, no matter the result.
Overtime
- Big time rookie mistake for Caleb, taking a sack that he simply can’t take. Use your legs. Get positive yards.
- Vikings convert ANOTHER third and long against Eberflus’s defense. It is the story of this game at this point.
- Overtime is just easy completion after easy completion to wide open players for Darnold.
Vikings 30, Bears 27