Bears beat Vikings backups 21-19 to reach 8-8; real work starts now
Bilal Nichols’ first-quarter fumble recovery is the type of play the Bears’ defense needed more of in 2019. | AP Photos
While it was mildly refreshing to see the Bears do some things right, winning a preseason-like game doesn’t change anything about their hefty to-do list for the offseason.
MINNEAPOLIS — Finally, when it could not have mattered less, everything looked pretty good for the Bears.
Not great, but good. And given how this season has gone, a 21-19 road win against the playoff-bound Vikings and their backups was mildly refreshing. It was mostly a festival of field goals, but the Bears have had plenty of games in which they couldn’t even manage that.
It was reassuring simply to see them do some things right Sunday.
Matt Nagy called some run plays, including a few that actually worked. He kicked some prudent field goals, too, happily taking any points he could get instead of overthinking. And he showed expert clock management at the end.
Mitch Trubisky’s passer rating topped the temperature, which is never a given. It was probably about 70 degrees inside U.S. Bank Stadium, and he’s had a half-dozen games below that this season.
And the defense, which has been superb but not as overwhelming as last season, came up with seismic plays.
If only they could’ve done some of that when the games counted.
Instead, all this does for the Bears is keep a losing season off Nagy’s résumé and send them into offseason on an artificial high note after beating a Vikings team that started 16 backups, including quarterback Sean Mannion, in a game that had a Week-4-of-the-preseason vibe to it.
The Bears mounted an 18-6 lead in the third quarter on two field goals by Eddy Pineiro, linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski’s safety and a 14-yard touchdown run from David Montgomery.
That wasn’t enough, even against Minnesota’s second- and third-stringers. The Vikings clawed back into it with two scoring drives and cashed in on Trubisky’s fumble with 6:20 remaining by kicking a field goal to go up 19-18.
Trubisky kept them alive with a 34-yard completion on fourth down just before the two-minute warning, and Eddy Pineiro won it on a 22-yard field goal with 10 seconds left.
Those details are mostly trivial, though. The Bears were eliminated from the playoffs two weeks earlier, and the Vikings were locked into the No. 6 seed either way. It’s hard to get too down about 8-8 in Chicago, by the way. This was the Bears’ 10th-best record in the last 28 seasons.