Minnesota Vikings Week 5: Top takeaways vs. the Chicago Bears

The Minnesota Vikings’ second Monday Night Football game of the season turned out to be a lot closer than their first as they survived a nail biting second half at Soldier Field to secure a 20-17 victory over the Chicago Bears.

One week after competing in a divisional slugfest against the Detroit Lions, the Minnesota Vikings found themselves in embroiled in another one with both team’s defenses dominating the first half. An unhealthy Sam Bradford and debuting Mitchell Trubisky cancelled each other out, resulting in a 3-2 Vikings lead at the end of the second quarter.

Thankfully for viewers, the game came to life in the second half as the Vikings’ offense stepped it up a gear with a new quarterback under center and Chicago resorted to the depths of their playbook in an effort to secure a victory. Fortunately, the Vikings were able to overcome a variety of trick plays and drive-extending penalties to secure their third victory of the season thanks to their defense coming through in the clutch.

With Minnesota returning to winning ways, let’s review the top takeaways from Monday night and what they mean for the upcoming shown with the Green Bay Packers.

(Unless otherwise noted, all game stats are provided by ESPN)

A tale of two quarterbacks

As the Vikings offense took the field for the game’s opening series, Minnesota fans were understandably excited to see Sam Bradford returning from injury and back under center.  While Case Keenum had performed admirably in Bradford’s absence, the offense’s ceiling is undoubtedly higher with the former first overall pick taking snaps.

As the first half wore on, that excitement gradually turned into despair as it became clear that Bradford had tried to return from his injury too quickly and his ability was severely limited. By halftime Bradford had turned in a Flacco-esque performance, completing 5 of his 11 attempts for only 36 yards.

Bradford’s decision-making appeared to be fine, but his accuracy was severely affected as he missed several throws that he made look easy in his first performance of the season.  The biggest problem appeared to be Bradford’s lack of mobility. He was sacked on four occasions and gave up a safety by holding onto the ball to long in his own end zone.

The Vikings lost a combined 35 yards on those sacks and after two quarters of play they had gained a solitary yard from their passing offense. Bradford has never been the most agile of quarterbacks, but without the ability to even navigate the pocket, the Vikings’ offense looked dead in the water.

You can fairly question the Vikings’ decision to start Bradford in the first place, but at halftime the coaching staff absolutely made the right call by handing over the reigns to Case Keenum. The difference a healthy quarterback could make to the Vikings’ offense was apparent from his first drive as Keenum marshalled the offense down the field for 75 yards, ending in a touchdown pass to Kyle Rudolph.

By the end of the night Keenum had turned in another impressive performance in purple and gold with 17 completions on 21 attempts for 140 yards and a touchdown. The Vikings’ offensive line continued to struggle with the Bears’ pass-rush, but unlike Bradford, Keenum performed admirably under pressure and managed to avoid getting sacked.

Heading into Sunday’s showdown with the Packers, the Vikings face a week of speculation ending in another difficult decision for the coaching staff.  The Packers are impressively ranked sixth in the NFL in passing yards allowed per game and any game with Aaron Rodgers involved has the chance to become a shoot out. For those reasons, if Bradford is able to get notably healthier by Sunday he gets my vote to start.  As impressive as Keenum has been at times, I just can’t see him outscoring Rodgers and a notably improved Green Bay secondary.

New chefs in the kitchen

After Minnesota’s dynamic rookie Dalvin Cook was placed on injured reserve following his season ending ACL tear, questions were being asked about how the Vikings’ rushing offense would cope without him. While the Vikings signed Stevan Ridley mid-week to bolster their depth chart, the Vikings decided to rely on in house options as Ridley was surprisingly cut prior to Monday’s game.

After one game’s worth of action, the diminished Vikings group of running backs performed relatively well. Facing a Bears defense that had only allowed and average of 85.5 rushing yards per game prior to Monday night, the Vikings were able to gain 159 with 126 coming from the combination of Jerick McKinnon and Latavius Murray.

McKinnon was unquestionably the Vikings’ offensive player of the game as he overcame a fumble, which fortunately bounced out of bounds on the opening kickoff of the second half, to gain 146 yards from scrimmage. McKinnon’s biggest play of the night game on a toss play in the third quarter as he took advantage of fantastic downfield blocking to race away for a 58-yard touchdown.

Outside of that run, McKinnon was arguably more effective in the passing game than carrying the ball. He caught all six of his targets for 51 yards and led the team in receiving yards as he proved to be an adequate replacement for Cook in that aspect of the offense.

On the ground, McKinnon was given 16 carries and was largely bottled up averaging just 2.5 yards per carry excluding his touchdown run. While he may not offer the consistent threat that Cook did, McKinnon posses the speed and athleticism to take advantage of his blocking when it provides the opportunity a big play.

Latavius Murray saw his most significant action since signing with the Vikings as he carried the rock 12 times for 31 yards and contributing two catches for 12 yards in the passing game. Murray averaged 2.6 yards per carry and was solid rather than spectacular in doing so as he picked up the tough yards needed to gain a couple of key first downs. As he continues to recover from his ankle operation, Murray will hopefully continue to improve. Should he not, McKinnon looks set to become the team’s primary running back.

The Vikings rushing attack appears to be in reliable hands in Cook’s absence. Don’t be surprised if they have an equally impressive game against the Packers’ run defense who are currently ranked 22^nd in yards allowed per game.

Under 300 Club

Entering Monday’s game, the Minnesota defense had been gaining traction as one of the league’s premier units and against Chicago, they solidified their lofty standing.  While no particular positional group had a standout game, as a whole the defense was very impressive in holding their opponent to fewer than 300 yards for the second consecutive week.

Facing a rookie quarterback making his first start may seem like an easy proposition, but a lack of NFL tape available often hinders a coordinator’s ability to prepare without being able to identify a prospect’s areas of strength or weaknesses to attack. You only have to look at how Deshaun Watson has been tearing apart opponents to see that facing a highly regarded rookie signal caller can be a daunting task.  Refreshingly, Mike Zimmer proved himself more than capable of meeting the challenge as Mitchell Trubisky was limited to completing only 12 passes for 128 passing yards.

The secondary was in fantastic form as they severely restricted Trubisky’s downfield options and forced several pass break-ups on the passes that were accurate.  Speaking of broken up passes, Andrew Sendejo was very unfortunate to see one that he tipped end up the hands of Zach Miller for a touchdown, but that slice of bad luck was wiped out by a Harrison Smith interception that set up the Vikings’ winning field goal.

On the subject of turnovers, the Vikings’ pass-rush wasn’t as prolific as it was against the Lions, but on the Vikings’ only sack of the night, Everson Griffen forced a fumble for Linval Joseph to pounce on. Griffen continued his tremendous start to the season by logging his sixth sack of the campaign, and continuing his streak of taking down a quarterback in each game.

The Vikings’ run stoppers were once again in fine form as they restricted the Bears to under four yards a carry and completely shutdown Tariq Cohen a week after struggling against an equally slippery ball carrier in Amer Abdullah. Trae Waynes may rightfully garner criticism for his coverage ability, but he particularly impressed by channelling his inner Antoine Winfield by making several run stops around the line of scrimmage.

If they want their winning ways to continue, the Vikings will need to be at their defensive best against Aaron Rodgers when he visits U.S Bank Stadium this weekend. In last season’s fixture, the Vikings’ defense did a fantastic job of shutting him down and based on their performances so far this year, I wouldn’t bet against a repeat performance.