We Won't Learn Anything About the Vikings In Chicago

The Minnesota Vikings have a funny way of never letting anyone know whether they are any good.

5-0 start? Sure, but the Green Bay Packers disrupted their defense using tempo, and the 3-8 New York Jets were a Stephon Gilmore pick away from potentially upsetting them in London. The Detroit Lions game felt like more than a two-point loss, and the Los Angeles Rams built off what Ben Johnson did and beat Minnesota by 10.

The 3-0 run after that? The Vikings beat the Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Tennessee Titans to sweep the AFC South. And still we’ve spent this week debating how well Minnesota played in those wins. None of them felt dominant or convincing despite the underlying metrics.

On the one hand, they had 81 first downs in those games and held their opponents to 34. The Vikings also dominated the time of possession against Indianapolis and Jacksonville. On the other, each score was close. Meanwhile, Minnesota’s chief competition in the NFC North, the Detroit Lions, blew out the Titans and Jaguars.

The Vikings will probably have to win ugly in Chicago, where they had an opportunity to win by more in the past three games. Sunday’s contest at Soldier Field will feel different from the games in Jacksonville and Nashville. Many displaced Minnesotans or traveling fans filled the stands the past two weeks, making them feel like pseudo-home games.

Given how close Chicago is, Vikings fans will also likely travel to Soldier Field. Still, the 4-6 Bears are a

Despite their faults, Chicago is a better team than the Vikings have faced in the past three weeks. The Colts are 5-6, but they started 39-year-old Joe Flacco in Minnesota. Jacksonville and Tennesee only have four wins combined. The Vikings beat the spread against the Colts and Titans, but they should have put all three teams away sooner.

That won’t be the case against the Bears. From 2001 to 2019, the Vikings lost 16 of 19 games in Chicago. They have won four straight since then. Still, they’ve all been weird games.

• 2020: Minnesota won 19-13 in a November matchup of .500 teams during the COVID year.
• 2021: Dalvin Cook had more yards rushing (89) than Kirk Cousins had passing (87). Still, the Vikings topped the Bears 17-9 in a Monday night game that wasn’t safe for human consumption.
• 2022: The Vikings beat Chicago 29-13 in a meaningless game to complete their 13-win season. Most of Minnesota’s starters spent the second half on the bench in winter jackets. A multiple-score game hardly means anything in Week 18 of a season where the Bears finished 4-13.
• 2023: Justin Jefferson suffered his hamstring injury against the Kansas City Chiefs the week before, and Minnesota’s offense looked lost without him in Chicago. The Vikings won 19-13 but were out of sorts.

However, Cousins put on a masterclass against the San Francisco 49ers on Monday night a week later. Then he tore his Achilles in Green Bay. It was hard to know what to make of that win in Chicago last year because of everything that happened after.

The Niners win seemed to save Minnesota’s season – until it didn’t. Joshua Dobbs briefly looked like a savior, but the Bears solved him in a 12-10 Week 12 win before the bye. The 6-6 Vikings went 1-4 after that and fizzled to a 7-10 finish. In hindsight, it’s hard to know what to make of their win in Soldier Field.

There’s only one certainty about games in Chicago: They hardly look like football. The Soldier Field grass turns into cement this time of year, and something weird always seems to happen. Unlike the games against poor AFC North teams in front of half-purple stands, this Sunday’s game should be ugly.

Still, we probably won’t learn much about the Vikings after this one. Fitting for a team that always shrouds itself in mystery.