5 things to watch in Chicago Bears home opener — including Minnesota Vikings QB news — plus Week 2 predictions
The Chicago Bears return to Soldier Field for their home opener Sunday (noon, Fox-32) against the Minnesota Vikings in Week 2 action. It will be the Bears’ first meaningful game in front of their home crowd since a pair of rowdy playoff games in January
“Jan. 18 was the last time we were in there, in front of them, in the regular season or playoffs,” quarterback Caleb Williams said. “Really excited. It’s going to be really fun.”
The Bears have won two of the last 10 meetings between these NFC North rivals. They split their two games last season, with the Vikings coming from behind to win in Week 1 at Soldier Field and the Bears exacting revenge on a last-second field goal in Week 11 in Minneapolis.
Here’s what to watch for in Week 2.
1. Vikings turn to backup plan.
Big-picture-wise, there has been plenty of uncertainty at the position since Kirk Cousins left the Vikings. But on a more immediate level, there is no uncertainty about who will start this week.
Newcomer Kyler Murray suffered a concussion early in the Week 1 win over the Green Bay Packers, and Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell announced Friday that Carson Wentz will start, with J.J. McCarthy serving as the backup. Murray has been a limited participant in practice this week in concussion protocol.
Wentz, 33, led the Vikings offense on four consecutive touchdown drives last week to erase a 12-point second-half deficit. For the game, Wentz was 12-for-19 passing for 133 yards and three touchdown passes.
“He’s a veteran quarterback,” Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson said. “He’s played the game at a high level before. So for us it’s just understanding who he is, what he’s been able to do and he’s seen a lot of ball. For me, that wasn’t that surprising.”
Wentz played for the Vikings last year, starting five games midseason when McCarthy was out with an ankle injury, but the Bears never saw him.
McCarthy, who is the third-string quarterback, started both games against the Bears last season. A 2024 first-round pick, McCarthy is a La Grange Park native who played three years in high school at Nazareth.
Signing Murray was the Vikings’ big swing over the offseason. The Arizona Cardinals released the 2019 No. 1 draft pick in March, eating a $46.6 million dead-money salary-cap hit in 2026 for Murray not to play for them. With all that money still coming from the Cardinals, Murray signed with the Vikings for the league minimum $1.3 million this season.
He becomes O’Connell’s next quarterback project. But the concussion cut Murray’s Vikings debut short after only 11 snaps.
2. Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores keeps quarterbacks guessing.
In 2024 training camp, current Bears center Garrett Bradbury had to deal with Flores’ defense every time he showed up to work.
“It’s Flo vs. KO every day,” Bradbury recalled, referencing Flores versus O’Connell. “Tensions are high.”
Bradbury spent six years in Minnesota, the last of which was Flores’ first season as the defensive coordinator. Flores runs maybe the most unusual defense in the league. In Week 1 Flores blitzed Jordan Love and the Packers on 78.3% of snaps. That’s a truly unheard of blitz rate.
And it worked. The Vikings stymied Love and the Packers in the second half and won despite losing Murray to the concussion in the first quarter.
Flores’ blitz-happy style is the type of thing that keeps Ben Johnson up at night. The thing about his style is that it keeps everyone guessing. The blitzers can come from anywhere: a linebacker or cornerback or safety.
“He’s been doing it a long time and obviously he’s very unique in the way he calls the game and he puts a lot of trust in the players,” Bradbury said. “He certainly wants to frustrate quarterbacks, that’s what it boils down to. If he can cause any headaches, confusion, that’s what he’s going to do.”
Williams noted his two yearly matchups against the Vikings usually equate to “a little less sleep” during the week.
A year ago against the Bears, the Vikings blitzed a relatively modest — by Flores’ standards — 37.2% of plays in Week 1. Flores nearly doubled that figure when they met 10 weeks later.
How do you realistically prepare for that uncertainty?
“You don’t,” Ben Johnson said. “You try to have answers for everything. He’s been in this division three years now, and yeah, you’d like to think he’s put everything he could possibly do on tape until you play him next and you realize he hasn’t yet. So it’ll be something new. There always is with him.”
3. Player in the spotlight: Bears TE Colston Loveland
The Bears scored 59 points a week ago. Seven players caught passes. Loveland was not one of them.
Williams targeted Loveland twice, including once in the end zone. But while the stat line might not look like much, the underlying metrics indicate that Loveland was expected to be a big part of the offense in Week 1 and will be moving forward.
Loveland led all Bears pass catchers in snaps played and he ran more routes on passing plays than anybody. Per Sumer Sports, Loveland’s 35 routes ran in Week 1 tied for second-most among all NFL tight ends.
Bears offensive coordinator Press Taylor said there were plenty of plays against the Panthers in which Loveland was the primary read. For a variety of reasons, the ball just didn’t go his way.
“The great thing about Colston is that’s not a guy you worry about at all,” Taylor said. “You go back to (D’Andre Swift’s) touchdown at the end of the third quarter there, and Colston puts his man on the ground. That’s just something where, when you’ve gone through three quarters and you have no touches so far and you continue to fight and continue to help others get in the end zone — you wouldn’t have known if he had 10 catches or zero catches at the end of the game in the locker room.”
The Bears have a lot of weapons. Few Bears fans likely had Kalif Raymond as the leading receiver on their Week 1 bingo cards. Raymond caught eight passes for 84.
Last year it was hard to predict who would have a big game on any given day. For Johnson’s offense, that’s by design.
4. Keep an eye on …
Vikings defensive tackle Jalen Redmond
Redmond is a player casual fans perhaps might not have heard of, and his story is remarkable. Two-and-a-half years ago he was playing for the Arlington Renegades of the United Football League. Now, he’s the first player Ben Johnson mentioned when talking about the Vikings defense.
“I think he’s one of the better defensive linemen in this league,” Johnson said. “He’s flying under the radar and yet just seeing his growth over the years, he’s a force to be reckoned with.”
After playing four games for the Renegades in spring 2024, Redmond signed with the Vikings as soon as his UFL contract expired. He wound up appearing in 13 games that season and establishing himself as a player the Vikings wanted to keep around.
Last year, Redmond played in all 17 games, making 15 starts, and recorded six sacks and 12 tackles for a loss. Taylor said Redmond caught their attention in last year’s Week 11 matchup.
“You watch the back half of the season and what he did last week as well with Green Bay, he’s a guy that … he can move up and down the formation a little bit based on what personnel grouping they’re in and where he plays,” Taylor said. “He’s a load, he’s quick like a lot of their guys are.”
Playing against Flores’ defense already stresses an offensive line to be on its p’s and q’s communications-wise. On top of that Redmond is going to test the Bears’ interior offensive line.
5. Injuries and participation
The Bears did not have an injury designation for a single player Friday and will be close to full strength.
Right tackle Darnell Wright (knee), safety Xavier Woods (groin) and cornerback Malik Muhammad II (ankle) were all full participation after being limited earlier in the week.
Left tackle Ozzy Trapilo continued to make incremental progress toward being game ready and was listed as a full participant in practice for the first time. Friday is the shortest practice of the week, and it was in shorts and shells — not full pads — but Trapilo had been designated as limited Wednesday and Thursday as well as all of Week 1 when he was inactive.
Trapilo still could be a couple of weeks off from being game-ready. The next step will be full participation in practice with full pads. Offensive line coach Dan Roushar has said a few times that the team would rather be a day late at each point in Trapilo’s comeback from a ruptured patellar tendon than a day early.
“We want to see the player that we saw at the end of the season,” Roushar said last week. “When he’s close to that, playing with confidence, playing with physicality, shutting down power, change of direction, all of the things that he has to do. When that is clear, that he is doing that at a high level, then he’ll be ready.”
Ben Johnson figured the Bears might not find out who was playing quarterback for the Vikings until the last moment, but Minnesota on Friday named Wentz the starter as Murray remains in concussion protocol.
The Vikings went 2-3 in the games Wentz started last season. He was sacked 19 times in those five games and threw five interceptions.
The Bears last faced Wentz in 2022 when he was starting for the Washington Commanders. He completed only 10 of 22 passes for 99 yards in a Week 6 game at Soldier Field that the Bears managed to lose 12-7. Wentz is 4-0 in his career against the Bears, the first three starts coming as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.
The Vikings also ruled out wide receiver Jauan Jennings (personal), and right tackle Brian O’Neill (knee) is questionable.
Chicago Tribune reporter Brad Biggs contributed.
Predictions
Brad Biggs (1-0)
One of the reasons the Bears pivoted quickly to Bradbury after the retirement of Drew Dalman was to have an experienced communicator in the middle of the offensive line. Bradbury will have a big job against the varied pressures the Minnesota is expected to throw at Williams. If the Vikings are pressure-heavy, the Bears will be one broken tackle away from a long run on a handful of plays.
Bears 34, Vikings 24
Sean Hammond (1-0)
The Packers were one-dimensional against the Vikings last week. Their running game was almost nonexistent. Johnson’s more-balanced offense should find ways to stress the Vikings defense more than the Packers did. Flores is always a challenge, but the Bears offense is well equipped to handle that challenge. I don’t know that it matters which Vikings quarterback plays. Minnesota will find ways to score points against a Bears defense that still has to prove itself. I expect these teams will put up some points, albeit maybe not 59. I have the Bears winning a narrow one.
Bears 30, Vikings 27
Phil Thompson (1-0)
Bears coaches have conceded that they’re probably going to see plenty from Flores’ defense that they weren’t expecting. Meanwhile, the Bears defense is still finding its footing and may struggle early. Here’s predicting that both sides of the ball make adjustments and find plays in the second half. Last September at Soldier Field, it was the Vikings who rallied late, but this year’s matchup has the makings of Comeback No. 1 for the Bears.
Bears 24, Vikings 23