The Minnesota Vikings only needed nine points on offense to get the win as the defense held the Chicago Bears offense in check for the entire game. Chicago lost Caleb Williams in the fourth quarter, but he made the quarterback uncomfortable while he was out there.
Before his injury, Williams went 15-for-26 on his pass attempts for 138 passing yards, one interception, and a passer rating of 56.2. The Bears lost Williams at a crucial moment in the red zone, pushing for a touchdown. Moreover, that drive ended with a blocked field goal.
Nonetheless, on the Vikings’ side, Carson Wentz spoke to the media and shared their offensive approach when seeing the defense make life difficult for the Bears’ offense.
“You want to be smart, be smart with the football, protect the ball,” Wentz told reporters postgame. “No negative plays, no big plays that can kind of cost you the game, so to speak. With a defense like we have, that’s kind of the mindset. We want to play attack-minded football.
“The way the weather was today, obviously we were a little limited by some of that. And not that that’s an excuse, but it was, hey, let’s run the rock. Let’s try and stay on the field. We would love to convert more third downs than we did today. But yeah, when the defense is playing like that, it’s like, ‘Hey, we don’t need to score a lot.'”
Carson Wentz Doesn’t Mind Vikings Winning Ugly
Wentz went 11-for-20 on his pass attempts for 143 passing yards and a passer rating of 77.7. Nonetheless, the Bears’ defense did sack the veteran QB three times, but as he mentioned, the team didn’t have any turnovers.
Furthermore, it wasn’t a pleasant game to watch on offense, but all Wentz cares about is winning to start the season 2-0.
“The defense stepping up when we needed them,” Wentz noted. “The blocked field goal, everything about it was just a team win. It was ugly out there. I’m not going to lie, but I’d rather win ugly than look good and come up with an L. So it was huge for us.”
Bears HC Ben Johnson on Loss to Minnesota
Meanwhile, after the loss, Bears head coach Ben Johnson spoke to the media about what went wrong for his team, aside from losing Williams, who had been marching the Bears offense in the red zone before going down.
“Overall, you look at what got us in the first half offensively; we had way too many penalties,” Johnson told reporters postgame. “I think we had seven in the first half, really threw us off course a little bit and against good defense like that, you just can’t shoot yourself in the foot. We had way too many turnovers.
“The blocked field goal hurts, and then we had missed red zone opportunities just as a whole. So, proud of how our defense played throughout that game. I thought they really competed their tails off and kept us in it for the most part. They brought a lot of energy, and it was good to see them respond the way that they did.”
Carson Wentz Reveals Vikings’ Clear Approach to Beating Bears