Chicago Bears: What to watch in latest attempt to end losing streak in Week 15

The Chicago Bears will face the Minnesota Vikings on the road in their latest attempt to end their long, frustrating losing streak.

The Chicago Bears go on the road in Week 15 to face the Minnesota Vikings on primetime. It is their latest attempt to end their long losing streak, which stands at seven. If they do not win on Monday Night Football, they will match the second-longest losing streak in franchise history.

The last time the Bears faced their NFC North counterparts, they made a furious late-game comeback (which included a successful onside kick) to force overtime. However, several moves were not made that could have given them a victory in regulation. The loss was used as a reason for the firing of head coach Matt Eberflus.

Now the Chicago Bears have Thomas Brown as the interim head coach. He had a tough first game as head coach in Week 14, though. The Bears were thoroughly outplayed in a 38-13 blowout loss to the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners scored a touchdown easily on their first drive and never looked back.

Now Brown wants to show that last week’s game was an aberration. He hopes to have the team much more prepared. It is critical for him because if the team is embarrassed again that would all but guarantee his exit at the end of the season.

The Vikings are on a mission. Despite losing quarterback Kirk Cousins via free agency this offseason, they are 11-2. A win against the Chicago Bears and they will be in a three-way tie with the Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles for the best record in the NFC.

Meanwhile, with the Washington Commanders win on Sunday, the Chicago Bears are eliminated from playoff contention. We knew a while ago that the playoffs were out, but now it is official. Incredible to believe that this season started with such hope but it turned out that last season’s team made it to Week 17 before it got eliminated.

While the team is in the midst of a long losing streak and they fired both their offensive coordinator and head coach during the season (the first time in franchise history for both moves), the Chicago Bears come into the game feeling they could win. They know that a different decision here or there and they could have beaten the Vikings. They hope to finish the job on Monday.

Here are five keys that will help the Chicago Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings in their Week 15 matchup.

The Bears cannot get off to a slow start again

This season, the Chicago Bears continually start off slowly in games. They dig themselves a deep hole. They have been able to dig themselves out and find themselves in a position to win late, but that luck ran out last week when they dug themselves a hole so deep they could not come back.

Getting off to a slow start puts a lot of pressure on the team. The defense has to start making continuous stops just to give the team a shot at coming back. The offense has to throw the ball more to get back in the game. That makes it tough for the offense to be well balanced.

Not being balanced hurts the Bears’ chances to win. In games in which they attempt 30 or more passes Chicago is 0-7. That means when they are more balanced they have a 4-2 record.

If the Bears can keep the game close at the beginning, or even have a lead, they give themselves a better shot at winning. The balanced offense helps protect rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. Williams will not have to take the offense on his shoulders for the Bears to win.

Contain the Vikings’ offense

In last week’s loss to San Francisco, the Chicago Bears defense could not make stops. The Niners had 452 yards of total offense, including 321 passing yards. Quarterback Brock Purdy was 20/25 (80 percent completion percentage) for 325 yards and 2 touchdowns.

San Francisco came into the game struggling with a ton of injuries. Many of their key offensive weapons and protection were out, yet they still managed to blow up the Bears’ defense.

Minnesota’s offense, on the other hand, comes in red hot. They dropped 43 points on the Atlanta Falcons last week. Additionally, they are averaging 29.5 points per game in their last four. The Bears need to find a way to slow the Vikings down a bit.

In those four games, quarterback Sam Darnold has 11 touchdown passes to zero interceptions. In the first game against Chicago, he had 330 yards passing, 2 touchdowns, and a 116.1 passer rating. He did that despite not having wide receiver Justin Jefferson displaying his greatness.

Chicago Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson did an excellent job covering the All-Pro Jefferson. Jefferson had just 2 catches for 27 yards. Jefferson wants to make up for that so Johnson will need a repeat performance for the Bears to have any chance of winning.

While Jefferson struggled, Jordan Addison had a big game. The Bears were more concerned with Jefferson and had no answer for Addison. He went off for 8 catches, 162 yards, and a touchdown.

Chicago also has to cut down on the big plays. They allowed at least nine chunk plays (plays of 20+ yards) against the 49ers. It makes it impossible to keep up when the opponent can continually get 20 yards or more at ease. The Vikings offense has the weapons to make the chunk plays. The Bears have to make sure they keep those plays at a minimum.

The Chicago Bears will also have to contain running back Aaron Jones. Jones has been a Chicago Bears killer from his days with the Green Bay Packers. In the first game, he had 106 rushing yards and a touchdown. The Bears have struggled against the run this season, ranking 23rd in rushing touchdowns allowed and 26th in rushing yards allowed.

The offense needs to handle Flores’ strong defense

Vikings’ defensive coordinator Brian Flores has one of the toughest defenses in the NFL. The unit ranks sixth overall in points allowed. Against the run, it ranks third in touchdowns and second in yards allowed. Additionally, Minnesota’s defense blitzes on 38.7 percent of snaps, the most in the league.

Where the Vikings’ defense does struggle a bit is against the pass. They rank 29th in passing yards allowed and 14th in passing touchdowns. We saw that in the first meeting. Williams threw for 340 yards and 2 touchdowns and no turnovers in that game.

Minnesota’s secondary ranks number one in interceptions with 20. The defense overall ranks second in turnovers with 27. The unit has at least one turnover in every game this season and five in the past two games.

Flores will certainly try some wrinkles for Willliams. He was very impressed with the rookie’s performance in that first game. Flores was trying to deal with Williams’ mobility. He saw that he could have the perfect defense called but Williams could still escape and get a throw off or use his legs to gain yards.

This time around Williams’ job will be a little tougher. Left tackle Braxton Jones was ruled out of the game due to a concussion. Jones is one of the best linemen on a unit that has struggled this season. The Chicago Bears started Week 15 with 56 sacks allowed, the most in the league.

Williams will have to use some of his magic to once again succeed against the Vikings’ defense. He has been running for his life far too many times. Last week the Niners had seven sacks. With Minnesota’s struggles against the pass, Williams will have opportunities to make big plays if he can get enough protection.

The offense needs contributions from all its weapons

Despite the Chicago Bears offense’s struggles, it has a variety of weapons. D.J. Moore, Keenan Allen, Rome Odunze, Cole Kmet, and D’Andre Swift are great options for Williams to target. For some reason, however, the stars cannot align so that most of them can contribute at one time.

Kmet has been criminally underused. Last season, he averaged 5.3 targets per game. This season, that total dropped to 3.8 per game. Last week, he had zero targets. It was the seventh time this season that he received three or fewer targets in a game.

When he is targeted, Kmet has the hands to be dependable. He caught 42 of his 50 targets this season. That is a catch percentage of 84 percent. The offense has to include him more in the game plan.

The Chicago Bears have one of the most talented trio of wide receivers in the league. However, Moore, Allen, and Odunze have not been in sync. Each has had some big games but they have not been playing well together consistently enough.

If the receivers can play well at the same time this offense has the chance to fly. When they don’t, the offense struggles. Last week the only receiver who played well was Odunze, who had his first multi-touchdown game.

The more targets Williams can choose from, the better chance the Chicago Bears have of ending their losing streak.

Brown is not the only coach who needs to show something

As mentioned earlier, Brown needs to coach a good game if he wants to remain in Chicago. His audition is not only for the Chicago Bears, though. If he does a good job, other teams can see that he could be a good candidate for them.

Brown is not the only coach on the staff who needs to show something. Defensive coordinator Eric Washington has to do well. When Eberflus was the head coach he was calling plays for the defense. Now Washington is in charge. His first game as head of the defense was a horrible one.

Washington called a basic vanilla defense and San Francisco head coach Kyle Shanahan was able to dissect it and destroy it. Vikings head coach also has a good offensive mind and the same could happen if Washington does not improve his game plan.

No matter what happens the rest of this season, it appears that the Chicago Bears coaching staff will be drastically different in 2025. The team will likely go with a new head coach who will want his own personnel. The Bears’ coaches need to coach for the betterment of their own careers.

Even if the Chicago Bears lose, if they show some fight and don’t lay down like they did last week will be a good sign. That embarrassing effort by everyone involved was something that was unacceptable to the fans. They will accept losing as long as the teams competes.

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