Things are happening at the Chicago Bears – the fans in Windy City are hoping for the beginning of a new era: Mitchell Trubisky will take over the quarterback rudder in week 5 at prime time, but he will be confronted with the tough defense of the Minnesota Vikings.Is there still a fairy tale debut?In the coin toss, mySPOX user BlueSky argues for his Vikings, SPOX editor Adrian Franke defends his Bears tip.The game can be seen live on the night from Monday to Tuesday from 2.30 a. m. on DAZN!
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Chicago Bears (1-3) – Minnesota Vikings (2-2) (Tue, 2:30 a. m. live on DAZN)
mySPOX-User BlueSky: First of all, thanks to you, Adrian, for thinking of me – even if the task you’re asking me to do seems to be hopeless in itself.Since 2007, the Vikings have only once left the Soldier Field as the winner and this game was won by a last-minute field goal.In addition, Week 4 brings us to Windy City with an unfortunate defeat and the loss of Top-Pick Dalvin Cook, who will miss the entire rest of the season due to a torn cruciate ligament.So what makes me feel confident that we will win this game?
The Bears will start on Monday in the Mitchell Trubisky era, after the announcement last Monday of Mike Glennon’s move to Trubisky.And in his first game as an NFL starter, it’s getting really big for him.He has a Vikings front waiting for him, which Stafford dropped six times last week and a Secondary which left several interception chances against Stafford and now eager to show that you can do better this week.
But let’s start with the line of scrimmage.Here I see the key to the vikings in the duel between Linval Joseph and Bears-Center Cody Whitehair, who according to PFF is currently number 31 in the league.If Whitehair continues its performance to date, this will be extremely damaging to the Bears’ run game.The Vikings’ defence has not yet approved 100 rushing yards against any team this year.In the Passing Game it should also be possible to put enough pressure on Trubisky to force him to make mistakes with Joseph or Zimmer’s favorite toy – the Double-A-Gap Blitz.
In the passing game I don’t see how the Bears should beat the Vikings at the moment.The Bears’ top 3 WRs are currently at 393 passing yards, Stefon Diggs on the Vikings side alone has 391 yards.
The vikings start off with some question marks.It is not yet clear whether Case Keenum will have to restart our backup with Case Keenum or whether Sam Bradford will return after having taken part in the last two days of limited training.Apparently, Bradford’s chances are not bad.
The even bigger question mark reigns in the backfield where everything has to be rearranged due to the violation of Cook.It is still unclear whether the role of starter will be assigned to McKinnon or Murray.Surely the Run Game won’t be as explosive as with Cook, but against the Bears’ Run-D ranked only at position 20, something should be possible.Danny Trevathan’s lockdown should be playing into our hands.
In the Passing Game you get with the receivers 1 (Diggs) and 3 (Thielen) if you only go to yards.Against a Bears-CB-Corps consisting of Amukamara, Cooper and Fuller, it should be possible to get the passing game rolling.
With all the question marks surrounding the vikings, you are still the much better team on both sides of the ball and so normally an away win should be the logical result.But what’s normal in the NFL this year?
Adrian Franke (SPOX): Who isn’t curious to finally see Trubisky on the pitch?After a remarkably short college career in terms of starts, Trubisky made a surprisingly good impression in the preseason – and there is much to suggest that he should fit in better with the offense of the Bears than Mike Glennon ever did.
When you look at Chicago’s offense, two things stand out: The Bears have one of the worst wide-receiver corps in the NFL, six yards per pass and only four passing touchdowns with five of their own interceptions over the first four games.But what Chicago has got is a fitter and therefore solid offensive line, a very good running back in Jordan Howard and a very good pass catch back in Tarik Cohen.
What does Chicago want to do offensively?Play action, rollouts, short, secure passes to the running backs and tight ends – that’s where Trubisky comes in.Compared to Glennon, this is the much more athletic quarterback, in the preseason he already suggested that he could bring this kind of offense to the field.With an efficient bootleg-play-action and short pass game, he should be able to take pressure from the run game and at the same time have more time to go through his reads, similar to what is currently being watched at Deshaun Watson in Houston.
The exciting question will be, how exactly does Chicago put this into practice, and how do the vikings prepare defensively for the unknown?The offensive approach, which is suggested, should make the debut easier for Trubisky, despite the tough opponent, and open up new avenues for the offense as a whole.And this is also necessary, because you can’t expect Chicago to play a run game like this against the Vikings front, which only allows 3.1 yards per run so far.
However, there is no denying that Minnesota will not be able to take an offensive approach to the game.Possibly without Bradford again, definitely for the rest of the season without Cook – the Vikes have shown some great off-season schemes and have a dynamic receiver duo, no question.However, Cook’s failure hurts incredibly, partly because of his qualities as a runner, but above all because of his general role in this offense.
With Cook on the court, Minnesota has a matchup weapon that allows them to take advantage of certain coverage advantages and facilitate quarterback reads.Latavius Murray isn’t a bad player, but he is certainly not a back that makes the difference – all the less against a Bears defense that also only allows 3.5 yards per run and has its strengths in the front.
In the Secondary, Chicago is probably vulnerable, but can Keenum or Bradford take advantage of it after the break?It is easy to imagine that he is under comparatively heavy pressure, and not only because he lacks Cook in the passing game.The Bears have the chance to successfully launch their new era against a division rival with a dominant appearance of the Front Seven and a better functioning own offense at primetime.