Knowing the Enemy: Bears vs. Vikings Preview

The Chicago Bears must learn the roster, schemes, and tendencies of the Detroit Lions , Minnesota Vikings, and Green Bay Packers. In the NFL season, those divisional opponents make up 35% of the schedule. Division games matter more. That's why Bears On Tap is taking a more in-depth look at the Bears' divisional opponents heading into the 2024 NFL season, moving on to the Vikings.

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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.” ― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Minnesota Vikings Roster

On the most recent episode of Bears On Tap, we were joined by Arif Hasan , the Chief Writer for WideLeft.Football . This article is heavily based on our conversation with Arif. While this article summarizes parts of that conversation, I highly suggest you watch or listen to the full interview, as the article simply cannot hit the same level of detail.

2024 Minnesota Vikings Objective

The Vikings always strive to make the playoffs under owner Zygi Wilf, who purchased the team in 2005. In the 19 years since, the Vikings have made the playoffs seven times, good for a hit rate of 37%. However, that playoff goal will be more difficult with the exit of quarterback Kirko Chainz (Kirk Cousins) to Atlanta. Organizationally, undergoing a total rebuild or even a “tank” season is not something the Vikings have allowed. Across the same 19-year period, the organization has won seven or more games 79% of the time. For the 2024 season, a more reasonable goal is to produce a winning record, a mark Minnesota has achieved 58% of the time since 2005.

Minnesota Vikings' Biggest Strength

The most likely answer here is wide receiver, but the safety position also deserves some consideration. Ultimately though, Justin Jefferson is so good that it overwhelms everything else. Arif discussed how Jefferson’s contract is much larger than many people realize. Still, he's totally comfortable with that because of the massive impact that Jefferson has on opponents' defensive structure.

In the first three years of his contract, Jefferson will receive significantly more money than any other non-quarterback in the NFL. Arif uses data to point out how much attention Jefferson draws from opposing defenses and how that opens different opportunities for the Vikings offense. Then, given that Jordan Addison is coming off an impressive rookie season, it's hard to go anywhere except for wide receiver. Especially considering the historical success the Vikings have had in making tertiary receivers useful in several roles.

While the Bears have a strong cornerback room, it'll still be challenging for them to tie up both Jefferson and Addison in years to come. Even the best cornerbacks in the league have trouble limiting Jefferson. Last year, Jefferson missed both games against the Bears with injuries. However, he's averaged 97.5 yards per game against Chicago across six career head-to-head contests.

Minnesota Vikings' Biggest Weakness

Arif mentioned that the cornerback position is an area where, as a fan, it's easy to convince yourself that there are good enough answers on the roster. For example, the Vikings added former Pro Bowl cornerback Shaq Griffin, which sounds great. But the problem is that Griffin hasn't actually played very well for the last few seasons, and the odds of an older cornerback having a bounce-back year after multiple subpar seasons are low.

Brian Flores has earned a lot of trust to maximize what's available to him, but the options at his disposal must be reason for concern. Arif went on to discuss some of the corners on the roster behind Byron Murphy. He mentioned optimism around Akayleb Evans and Mekhi Blackmon while also tempering expectations for the young players as they've yet to show much to fully buy into. Then, after this podcast aired, Mekhi Blackmon suffered a season-ending injury in training camp.

The Bears will have plenty of opportunity to attack this position group with their trio of DJ Moore, Keenan Allen, and Rome Odunze. While Flores will surely keep things fresh on the back end and show plenty of disguise, the Bears receivers should pose problems for the Vikings from a talent standpoint.

What Is the Vikings' Offensive Scheme?

Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell is a Kyle Shanahan and Sean McVay disciple who's been rather impressive since arriving in Minnesota in 2022. Often, coaches defined as Shanahan disciples get categorized into play action-heavy offenses. While the Vikings offense certainly doesn’t shy away from play-action, it is not nearly as play-action heavy as that of the Los Angeles Rams or San Francisco 49ers. The Vikings offense features more standard dropbacks than you see from those two teams.

The general goal in the Vikings dropback offense is “What can we do to help Justin Jefferson?” That's the base of the offense. Some examples include route combinations designed to isolate Jefferson or plays designed to pull attention away from him. Even the rushing offense is geared toward getting the safeties to inch forward, pay more attention to the run game, and open things up for Jefferson.

How to Attack the Vikings' Offense

The key to attacking the Vikings offense is to generate interior pressure, whether that means trusting the defensive tackles to generate a push, sending blitzes through the A-gaps, or using stunts to break free runners up the middle. The interior offensive line for the Vikings is shaky. At left guard, there's an open competition between Blake Brendel and Dalton Risner. Garrett Bradberry has been good enough but questionable at center, and Ed Ingram is still a question mark despite a strong finish to last season.

Additionally, for all the criticism that Kirk Cousins may have received, he was actually very good at identifying how teams will manufacture interior pressure and handling it throughout a game. The same can't be said for Sam Darnold or any rookie quarterback. Most notably though, the best way to attack the Vikings offense is by going after their weaknesses rather than overly focusing on containing Justin Jefferson.

This is an area of concern for the Bears, in my opinion. Gervon Dexter Sr. looks awesome in camp and I'm hoping for big things from him in 2024. But the Bears' defensive tackle depth is very thin. While they were able to manufacture some interior pressure last season with similar talent, I'm still somewhat wary of their ability to replicate it without committing linebackers to the pass rush. If they're committing to the blitz more often though, T.J. Edwards is a freight train down the middle.

What Is the Vikings' Defensive Scheme?

Everything, everywhere, all at once? Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores runs one of the most unique defenses in the league and it's constantly evolving. Arif mentioned that he expects the Vikings defensive scheme to be different in 2024 than in 2023. In 2023, Flores blitzed more often and used zone coverages behind those blitzes far more often than we'd seen in previous stops.

In both Miami and New England, Flores leaned much more heavily on man coverage. In both those stops, Flores had more talented man coverage defensive backs, and more versatile players across the defense, and struggled to protect against screen passes. In Minnesota, Flores has more players who are role-specific. Therefore, he leaned into zone coverage and rally tackling more to limit the damage when the blitz didn’t disrupt the play.

One example Arif mentioned of the Vikings' role limitations was at linebacker. In New England, Dont’a Hightower was an excellent linebacker who excelled as a blitzer. In Minnesota, Ivan Pace is an excellent blitzer who's far more questionable in other aspects of the defense. That type of talent leads to more predictable roles within the defense. As teams come up with answers to what Flores was doing in 2023, he'll need to have counterpunches that we haven't seen yet.

How to Attack the Vikings' Defense

It can be difficult to predict how to attack a Brian Flores defense since it's so multiple and constantly evolving. But Arif mentioned the idea of investing in RPO-style offenses. Adding RPO elements to an offense is easier said than done, as it requires a lot of offseason work and reps. The feel for the mesh point, team chemistry, and read familiarity are all huge factors in the RPO game. The reads, specifically, are something that quarterbacks need to train their brains for with repetition.

Given the blitz-heavy nature of the Vikings' defense, an RPO-heavy attack allows offenses to attack less skilled coverage linebackers like Blake Cashman and Ivan Pace. The beauty of the RPO is that when they are run effectively, the defender can't be right. Being able to put less talented defenders in those situations is a way to find success against this defense.

The Bears do have plenty of potential to include RPO elements in their playbook. RPOs were heavily used by Caleb Williams at USC. I imagine the Bears will have a few familiar RPO concepts installed for his comfort levels within the offense, alone. With his experience running RPOs, lightning-quick release, and skill-position talent around him, featuring more RPOs could be a good strategy for attacking this Minnesota defense.

Featured Works from Arif Hasan

You can find all of Arif Hasan's writing at WideLeft.Football . He recently wrote two excellent pieces about two different NFC North quarterbacks:

• Is Jordan Love Good?
• Is Jared Goff Good?

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