Minnesota Vikings: Biggest keys to victory vs Chicago Bears focuses on Dalvin Cook

This Minnesota Vikings fan blog entry was originally posted at Purple Pain Forums by Uncle.

“Heard it from a friend who,
heard it from a friend who,
heard it from another you’ve been messin’ around…
…you’re under the gun, now you take it on the run…”

If you’re a Generation X’er or Baby Boomer, then there’s a good chance you know what song those lyrics belong to 1981’s” Take it on the run” by REO Speedwagon – a rock band formed in the late ’60s in Champaign, Illinois, which is Chicago Bears country, the team the Vikings face in Week 5.

While that hit song is about a failed relationship, it also became this week’s inspiration and gameplan for a variety of reasons, not the least of which refers to the “relationship” Vikings fans have had with the team. Yeah, they were “messin’ around” on Love Boats, and they’ve “failed” to win a Super Bowl. But right now, they’re 3-1, on top of the NFC North, and they’re taking another Divisional win this weekend.

For all you Generation X’ers and Baby Boomers, get out your trapper keepers and take notes on how exactly we’re gonna do that in this week’s edition of Purple Path Forward.

**The 2022 Chicago Bears: “They are who we thought they were“**

Before we get to how the Vikings can beat the Bears, we have to understand who the Bears are, and quite frankly, the late Dennis Green said it better than you or I could ever say it:

If you thought the 2022 Bears – under first-time head coach Matt Eberflus and second-year QB Justin Fields – were a team that still can’t develop a QB to save their life and win primarily through running the ball on offense while playing solid pass/red zone defense (something you can cut-n-paste to describe every Bears team that ever existed), we’ll “crown” ya.

If you didn’t think that? Well, unlike Denny, we’ll “let ‘ya off the hook” and provide the 2022 statistics below to visually show you, courtesy of the USA Today Bearswire site.

Beyond those, here are a few additional statistics that were gathered after “reviewing the tape” of 2022 Bears games:

– Fields has the 3rd most rushing attempts of any QB thru 4 weeks at 34, with only Jalen Hurts (51) and Lamar Jackson (37) with more.
– The Bears have not allowed a 2nd half TD all season, a credit to defensive-minded HC Matt Eberflus and their halftime adjustments.

A top-five rushing offense with a QB that rushes a bunch plus a top-five passing defense that doesn’t allow teams to score in the Red Zone or in the 2nd half. Wait, haven’t the Vikings given up the 10th most rushing yards so far? And hasn’t 984, or 72%, of the team’s total offensive yard total of 1,376 come through the air? And didn’t we have trouble in the Red Zone against the Saints getting TDs? And haven’t the Vikings been a 2nd half team – really a 4th qtr team – the past two weeks?

Are we sure that Vegas got the line right for this game with the Vikings -7.5?

Here are four reasons why the Bears will basically end up shooting themselves in the foot on Sunday.

The Bears stop themselves

Curious to know which team has run the third-fewest No. of offensive plays at 227 and has the seventh-shortest average drive time at 2:29 per drive? That one was easy.

Here’s a tougher one: ever hear of Braxton Jones? Sam Mustipher? Lucas Patrick? Larry Borom? No? Most haven’t, until actually watching some 2022 Chicago tape. They are some of the starters along the Bears’ offensive line this season and are primarily responsible for the Bears having the third-most enforced false start penalties (7) through Week 4. That, combined with rookie left tackle Braxton Jones allowing 11 pressures and 4 sacks through four games will stop any positive drives in their tracks.

Costly turnovers

The Bears have a net turnover differential of 0 through four weeks, which by itself isn’t exactly horrible; Coach Eberflus is continuing the long tradition of a Bears defense doing the Peanut Tillman “punch” and thriving off turnovers, but it’s been the giveaways that have been costly. The Bears have turned it over seven times, but four of those have come in the 2nd half and three of the four in the 4th quarter. They’re in “rebuild mode” with youth at key positions, and with that comes costly mistakes in the clutch.

Justin Fields: Effective runner, or running for his life?

We mentioned earlier that Fields has the third-most rushing attempts of any NFL QB through four weeks. While that’s true, and Fields is very athletic/effective in the open field, here’s where we put that into a bit of context. Fields has 146 rushing yards on those 34 attempts, and all but 133 of those yards came on scrambles.

What that means is that the Bears offense, under former Packers QB coach Luke Getsy and former Vikings QB coach Andrew Janocko, isn’t designing runs for Fields in the same way the Bills, Ravens, Giants, and Eagles do for their athletic starting QBs, and Fields often picks up those yards when he had no other option. Or, because his ability to read a defense pre/post snap isn’t where it should be yet, he’s bailing on clean pockets when his first read isn’t there. Or, and more closely associated with reason No. 1, he has an inexperienced OL in front of him that doesn’t give him clean pockets, and he’s having to scramble around and run for his life.

They don’t stop anybody else

Yes, having the third-best rushing offense has certainly helped the Bears to victories in a sloppy Soldier Field during Week 1 against the 49ers and a Texans team that ranks second-worst in rushing defense in Week 3. But you have to stop the opposing team once in a while, too, and even though the Texans have the league’s second-worst rushing defense, guess who’s the worst? Even though they are a strong rushing team themselves, the Bears have been outgained on the ground in three of their four matchups so far, and six of the eight TDs they’ve allowed this season have come on rushes (the actual number is five of eight, but we’re counting an Aaron Rodgers forward “toss” TD to Aaron Jones as a rush).

Minnesota Vikings need to establish the run game early in Week 5

With all the hype on Justin Jefferson breaking receiving records and Irv Smith Jr. “breaking out” in Year 4, the focal point, at least for this week vs the Bears, is focusing on another statistic: that Chicago remains the worst rush defense in the league AFTER Week 5.

But how? Haven’t we been continuing to see Dalvin Cook run into brick walls a bunch on early downs, which is causing us to get into more 3rd-and-long situations than necessary? Yes, we have because, quite frankly, our play-calling and the blocking schemes have been lazy.

Case in point: in the Week 4 game vs the Saints, the Vikings’ defense stopped the Saints opening 3rd quarter drive and received the ball up 13-7, hoping to start putting nails in the Saints’ coffin with a long TD drive. Then on 1st & 10, we line up Cook behind Ham with a TE (Ben Ellefson) on the right side:

What happens? Well, it’s a straight hand-off to Cook to the right side with no misdirection, no pre-snap motion, and no pulling OL – it’s straight-up power football (almost like we had Adrian Peterson back there), and you already know what happens without a caption: Garrett Bradbury and Ellefson get driven into the backfield, and Cook tries to follow through Ham between those two, but both the Saints DL easily get off those blocks and blow up that play for a 1-yard gain:

On 2nd down, Kirk Cousins misfires to Justin Jefferson, and all of a sudden, we’re 3rd and long, which has been trouble for this team recently. In the above pic, you’d like to think Cook could bounce that outside to the right (outside of Ellefson) if he initially sees some OL are getting pushed back in the backfield, but it’s possible he just didn’t see it.

So what’s the solution? How do we have the success against the Bears’ 32nd-ranked rushing defense that their opponents have had so far?

We spent time watching the Bears’ opponents, and although the rushers they faced were different than the Vikings (Deebo Samuel, Elijah Mitchell, Jeff Wilson, and Trey Lance in Week 1, Aaron Jones/A.J. Dillon in Week 2, Dameon Pierce in Week 3 and Saquon Barkley/Daniel Jones in Week 4), there have been a few holes in that Swiss-cheese Bears rush defense that has looked familiar across those four games.

One of those similarities has been pulling the OL. Instead of going toe-to-toe with Eberflus’s patented 4-3 defense, all four Bear opponents were able to have a level of success rushing the football when OL have pulled around, created lanes/double-blocks, etc, and the RB followed behind that to get to the second level.

In this example from the Week 3 game vs Houston, you have the Texans set up 1st & 10 from the Chicago 41 after a Bears punt and nice return by the Texas returner. They start out with rookie running back Dameon Pierce in the backfield with their FB and a TE to the right side and two receivers to the left:

When the ball is snapped, the center (No. 54 Scott Quessenberry) and right guard (No. 60 AJ Cann) pull to the right side, and while everyone else creates a clogged-up wall to the left, Cann takes care of the RDE, and Pierce has a clear lane to run behind not just the FB, but the center to the second level:

The result of this play was Pierce getting all the way down to the Chicago 17-yard line, which eventually led to a Texans TD and them taking a 14-10 lead midway through the 2nd quarter on the road.

Another example is just the infamous McVay presnap motion/cutback run. How many times during the Mike Zimmer era did teams use this against his 4-3, and Anthony Barr/Eric Kendricks were out of position every time and never maintained that gap discipline? The Packers were driving the ball midway through the 2nd quarter in Week 2, already up 10-7, and were looking to start pulling away from Chicago, who was fairly competitive at this point.

But after a few plays, LaFleur dialed up the McVay pre-snap cutback run about four to five times in a row, Chicago did nothing to adjust, and the Packers ended up eventually scoring a TD to go up by ten, and it essentially was the beginning of the end for the Bears on SNF.

We’ve seen this action many, many times before. 11 personnel with one RB, one TE, and three WR. The WR farthest out goes in motion pre-snap from right to left to draw the attention of the defense to the left.

The ball is snapped, and the OL block to the left while the QB hands the ball off to the running back, who immediately cuts back to the right, and the defense is wide open to get to the second level, with the lone receiver to the right and the right tackle to help block downfield:

Eberflus, like Zimmer (2018-2021 era, after McVay started really hammering this run in his inaugural 2017 season), did not make any adjustments and Rodgers/LaFleur ran tempo here to just drive this run home.

How to beat the Bears

This isn’t rocket science. The Bears are exactly who we think they are: a young team that makes mistakes relies on running the ball well, but also gives up more ground to the opposing team than they get.

Offensively, Vikings must keep it simple

Kevin O’Connell, Wes Phillips, and Cousins do not need to overthink this by trying to scheme Justin Jefferson open like Cooper Kupp.

The Bears have a solid secondary with some young, up-and-coming players in Jaylon Johnson, Jaquan Brisker, and Kyler Gordon. Yes, Gordon is a rookie and can be beaten off the line, and while you take that when it’s there, you also ensure you are mixing in rushing plays against the porous Bears rush defense. And not just straight hand-offs to brick walls, either: O’Connell and offensive line coach Chris Kuper need to ensure they draw up the proper McVay/Shanahan runs (by mixing in the pre-snap motion/cutbacks with the pulling OL runs) to keep Eberflus guessing which way the ball is going.

The only thing not mentioned from the game footage was that Chicago’s “youth” on defense is also susceptible to another football 101 defensive “no-no”: they don’t set the edge very well. Green Bay in Week 2 and especially the Giants in Week 4 exploited the Bears’ DEs/LBs failing to set an edge, and Aaron Jones and especially Daniel Jones were able to easily turn the corner to miles and miles of daylight ahead of them – heck, Daniel Jones’ two TD runs were both exactly that: the Bears failing to set the edge on a bootleg. How can the Vikings exploit that without a mobile QB, you might ask? We have some speedy receivers, and we’ve seen a sprinkling of success on jet sweeps already this season.

Ed Donatell doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel defensively

we’re all begging for more QB pressure, and maybe we see the gameplan emulate the Week 1 approach against the Packers, who had a weak offensive line (especially at offensive tackle). The Bears’ line is a true work-in-progress at this point, and Danielle Hunter/Za’Darius Smith should be able to have the same level of success they did at home vs the Packers. What Ed Donatell could do is bring Harrison Smith down in the box a bunch more this game – especially early on – to try and stop the Bears’ rushing attack and put pressure on Fields to beat us with his arm from the pocket, which he has not shown he has the ability to do with any consistency.

“Take it on the run“, although it might be considered “classic rock” at this point, everything that once was old always comes back in style at some point, and when it comes to the Purple Path Forward in Week 5, we don’t need to be “messin’ around.”