The issue isn’t that the Vikings lost yesterday against the Bears, it’s how they lost.
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The Vikes were always going to have a tough time going into Soldier Field and beating the Bears with their offensive issues, regardless of whatever problems the Bears themselves might be experiencing this year.
But as the game played out, the Vikings actually had a better shot than you might have expected. The Bears gave the Vikings openings but the Vikes just couldn’t take advantage.
The Vikes’ failure to capitalize on Bears mistakes was only part of the story though. Plenty of other issues cropped during the course of the game, and most of them were achingly familiar.
1. Lack of deep passing game
Teddy Bridgewater has had problems hooking up with receivers down the field. We know that. Against the Redskins, he attempted multiple deep passes and missed on all of them.
In the Redskins game though, the Vikings at least kept trying to go deep. Bridgewater didn’t let his misses deter him from taking the pops when they were there.
Against the Bears it was a different story. Bridgewater seemed to eschew all opportunities to push the ball down the field, going for checkdown after checkdown.
It’s good that Teddy is using his checkdowns but you have to wonder after awhile if he isn’t becoming too tentative. Obviously, pass protection problems and receiver separation problems play into that.
Like I said, against the Redskins Bridgewater was still willing to take the shots even if the passes weren’t connecting. I don’t want Teddy to become an indiscriminate mad bomber out there but I also don’t want him to go into a shell entirely.
2. Lack of Cordarrelle Patterson impact
This is becoming monotonous. Will Patterson ever be an impact player for this offense? Is Bridgewater not seeing him out there or is he just not getting open?
Charles Johnson didn’t seem to have any trouble getting open against the Bears. Are we to believe the Bears clamped down so effectively on Patterson that he couldn’t get himself free at all, but Charles Johnson was able to find open space?
Patterson is smelling more like a bust with each passing week.
3. Matt Kalil
All I’m gonna say:
[@cjzero]
4. Punting problems
You know what is not a good combination? Going three-and-out a lot and then having your punter fail to flip field position. That has been a major issue for the last couple years. The offense and punting game sometimes do not help the defense field position-wise.
5. Getting off the field on third down defensively
The Vikings were doing a lot better in third down defense until yesterday. What happened? The pass rush evaporated, and the third down defense issues came back. Jay Cutler carved the Vikings up on third down.
Despite the Bears’ own pass protection issues, the Vikings failed to sack Cutler even once. Cutler operated pretty confidently all day and that was a problem.
Mike Zimmer did dial up some blitzes but only one of them was really effective, the one that forced Cutler to throw the interception to Harrison Smith (that might have turned the game the Vikings’ way had they been able to capitalize with points). A lot of blitzes didn’t get there.
6. Tormented secondary
Josh Robinson has looked pretty good most of this year but he was badly overmatched Sunday against Alshon Jeffery and Brandon Marshall. Once Jay Cutler realized Robinson could not possibly hope to jump with either of the Bears’ big receivers, the QB went to work on Robinson with the methodical, sadistic relish of a serial killer torturing a victim slowly to death.
Robinson would give up three TDs on the day. Just a terrible match up for Robinson and, give the Bears credit, a great job of capitalizing by Chicago.
7. Tackling issues
What is this s–t?
8. On the road outdoors in the NFC North
The Vikings can’t beat the Bears at Soldier Field and can’t beat the Packers at Lambeau. That’s been the case for several years now. Did the cold and wind and snow affect Teddy Bridgewater? It didn’t seem like it. Bridgewater simply didn’t have it going yesterday. He had no running game backing him up. His receivers didn’t do him any favors. Norv Turner may have implemented a too-conservative game plan. So many familiar issues. Frustrating performance even if the outcome was not that surprising.