Why Minnesota Vikings fans will forever feel uneasy playing against the Chicago Bears
AJ Mansour
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If you’ve grown up a Vikings fan or even spent any considerable amount of time rooting for this team you’re well aware that there is never a sure thing for this team. Just when you think that they’re walking into a game that’s loser-proof, they go above and beyond their normal to screw it up and blow a good opportunity.
In the grand scheme of things I’m a young Vikings fan, but most of my memories with this team are of the negative variety and highlight these blown opportunities perfectly. And I know that I’m not alone.
We all remember 1998 and the Dirty Birds, we remember “The Cardinals have knocked the Vikings out of the playoffs…noooo!!”, we remember “41-donut”, we remember Favre throwing across his body, we remember Blair Walsh wide left and we remember going to Philly after the “Minneapolis Miracle”.
And then there’s the situations that occur on a more frequent basis, most of which all blur together because there are so many similarities along the way. A dropped pass here, an interception there and a team playing down to the competition are just three of the most common mishaps that we see along the way with this team. Unfortunately for us, most of these situations pop-up against our divisional opponents as well.
When it comes to the Green Bay Packers, at least they’ve had some decent teams or a dominant quarterback that has stifled our squad periodically. That I can understand.
What I’ll forever struggle to understand is how the Vikings as a team, no matter what year, no matter which players are on the roster, so often play down to the competition when facing off against the Detroit Lions and specifically the Chicago Bears?
Minnesota’s struggles on the road against Chicago have been well documented and only recently has Mike Zimmer been able to shake that trend in a small way winning two of the teams last four games at Soldier Field.
But the games against Chicago here in Minnesota are not much better and because of the back loaded divisional schedule that the NFL employs, many of those games have mattered greatly to the Vikings only to see them wet the bed along the way. In fact, Mike Zimmer and the Vikings have lost four of their last five games against the Chicago Bears during a period when the Bears have not been a particularly impressive squad.
Is it the matchups? Is it the schemes? Is it the pressure? The answer to all of these things is yes, but the main answer remains the most frustrating one. The Vikings are just not that good of a team.
We’ve discussed it before both in the blogs and on the radio, and it’s one of the most obvious differences between really good teams and just okay teams, playing down to your competition. While everybody is susceptible to falling into this trap on occasion, “just okay” teams find a way to live in this zone on a regular basis. For the Vikings this takes the form of losing to the Lions TWICE on walk-off Nate Prater field goals, making Akeem Hicks look like an all-time great, or losing a field goal contest between Dan Bailey and Eddy Pineiro.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that these teams are better (or worse) than the Minnesota teams in question and very seldom do they square up and blow the Vikings away. Even more painfully, it comes in the form of letting bad teams hang with you into the fourth quarter where you all of the sudden remember that the other team is a professional football team as well and you’ve just given them a chance to win the game with one good drive, kick or stop along the way.
This is where the Vikings live.
We’ve seen it all year long with this 2020 rendition. One week you’re taking the Seahawks to the brink in a game where you should have won, the next you’re losing to a winless Falcons team. Then you go out and beat Green Bay on the road only to lose to a terrible Cowboys team shortly thereafter. Then you let bad Carolina and Jacksonville teams hang with you to the final seconds and can’t muster up enough to fight your way back against the Bucs on the road. It’s the ebbs and the flows of another mediocre season and it’s impossible for us not to feel like the crosshairs for another disappointment are firmly squared on today’s matchup with the Bears.
This inconsistency against bad teams is the only thing that is consistent for this generation of Minnesota Vikings. Yet, we’re left in a familiar place where we know there are pieces in place for ths team to have a future, but that consistency is still missing. Is it a mentality shift? Is it a missing player? Who knows. What I do know is that I feel uneasy about this week’s game against the Bears.
I guess we just have to deal with it. It’s just the hand we’ve been dealt as Minnesota Vikings fans.