Vikings are punchless in disappointing Week 4 loss to the Bears

The Minnesota Vikings laid an egg in one of their biggest games of the season as they were dominated by the Chicago Bears’ backups in a 16-6 loss.

Entering Sunday afternoon, the conditions seemed ripe for the Minnesota Vikings to pick up a victory over the Chicago Bears.

The Bears were missing three key pieces in their front seven and as the game got rolling, an early injury that knocked Mitchell Trubisky out of the contest appeared to make their path to victory much easier.

Instead, the Bears’ backups showed that they can step up when things go haywire. Chase Daniel was surgical in relief of Trubisky and the Vikings could not stop the Bears’ pass rush as Chicago picked up a 16-6 victory to send Minnesota to last place in the NFC North.

The tone of the afternoon seemed to be set early as the Vikings appeared to recover a fumble on the first drive of the game. While Danielle Hunter injured Trubisky’s shoulder on the play, Daniel would come in and dink and dunk Minnesota to death on a 15-play drive.

After the drive appeared to end for a second time on a fumble that fell into the lap of the Bears, Daniel would find Tarik Cohen on a 10-yard strike to put Chicago on the board with a 7-0 advantage.

Such a score wouldn’t be a back-breaking occurrence, but for the Vikings offense against the Bears defense, they might as well have been down by 30.

Chicago’s pass rush terrorized Minnesota all game long, collecting six sacks and countless pressures in the face of Kirk Cousins. Staying true to his brand, Cousins struggled in the face of adversity, fumbling multiple times and feeling pressure even when it wasn’t there.

While the Vikings defense had settled in, it appeared they had a stop right before the two-minute warning in the first half. But for whatever reason, Mike Zimmer would call a timeout as the Bears were waiting to wind down to the two-minute warning before punting. On the following play, the Chicago went for it on 4th and 3 and converted, leading to a 25-yard field goal by Eddy Pinero to put them ahead 10-0 at the half.

The second half would be more of the same as Minnesota couldn’t get any offense going outside of Stefon Diggs, who had seven catches for 108 yards. As Khalil Mack and Roy Robertson-Harris would each pick up 1.5 sacks on the afternoon, Cousins would lead the Vikings to a garbage-time drive that would be capped off by a two-yard touchdown run by Dalvin Cook and then a missed two-point conversion.

After a last-gasp onside kick fell out of bounds, Minnesota headed to defeat as they fell to the Bears by a score of 16-6.

The Vikings (2-2) will look to rebound in New York next week as they take on rookie sensation Daniel Jones and the Giants (2-2) on October 6. Next week’s game will kick off at 12 p.m. CT.