Latest intel on Kyler Murray’s injury situation gives the Bears another frustrating factor to prepare for looking ahead to Week 2
The Chicago Bears are wrapping things up from Week 1 and will soon turn the page to Week 2, where a frustrating situation from a preparation standpoint is brewing involving Minnesota Vikings quarterback Kyler Murray.
The Chicago Bears certainly had a lot of fun on Sunday to open their regular season with a 59-point outing on offense to come away with their first win of the 2026 season, but the NFL schedule rolls on and there’s little time for celebration.
The Bears are in the process of reviewing the film from Sunday’s game right now and then will have to quickly turn the page to Week 2’s matchup against the Minnesota Vikings for the remainder of the week.
And there’s already one frustrating factor that the Bears have to prepare for that is completely out of the team’s control.
Minnesota Vikings QB Kyler Murray is in the concussion protocol going into Week 2
The Minnesota Vikings debuted a new starting quarterback in Week 1 with former first overall pick Kyler Murray taking command of head coach Kevin O’Connell’s offense. However, 11 plays into his debut, Murray took a big hit on a scramble and was ruled out for the rest of the game with a concussion.
“He came in feeling pretty good today, he is in the protocol,” O’Connell told reporters on Monday. “So, we’ll defer to the medical folks in that protocol for how the week goes and we’ll just take it a day at a time. Other than that, don’t have a lot of updates on that.”
That situation makes Murray’s status a frustrating thing for the Bears to monitor and prepare for. Murray is a dynamic dual-threat quarterback and the gameplan will be a lot different if he’s on the field instead of Carson Wentz, who led a fourth quarter comeback on Sunday against the Green Bay Packers. While O’Connell didn’t add much about Murray’s status outside of being in the protocol and being able to attend team meetings, ESPN’s Adam Schefter filled in some of the major gaps.
“Usually, players who are in that position do not want to end up playing the next week,” Schefter said on ESPN’s Get Up. “They have a huge game against the Bears and it looks like it’ll be Carson Wentz starting.”
Now, of course, that’s not a guarantee. Which means the Bears are going to have to prepare a game plan for both Murray and Wentz throughout the week. And that’s a problem as we learned from last season.
Chicago Bears struggled preparing for QB injury situations last year
The Bears are no strangers to having to prepare for multiple quarterbacks during a game week. Just off the top of my head, they had to do so three times last season.
In Week 8, the Bears faced the Baltimore Ravens with Lamar Jackson dealing with an injury situation. Jackson ultimately did not play after being ruled out late in the week, and the Bears struggled against Tyler Huntley, who led the team to a 30-16 win.
The following week against the Cincinnati Bengals, starting quarterback Joe Burrow was not expected to play and veteran backup Joe Flacco was dealing with an AC joint injury going into the game. Flacco ended up throwing for 470 yards in that game, one the Bears had to grind out on offense to win 47-42.
And then in Week 12, the Bears were preparing for the Pittsburgh Steelers and quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who was dealing with a fractured left wrist. Rodgers tried his best to play in that game, but ended up not suiting up. In his place, Mason Rudolph had 171 yards with one touchdown and one interception while leading the Steelers to 28 points (Bears ended up winning that game 31-28).
All this to say, the Bears do not need another factor outside of their control to worry about on defense this week and now they’ve got one to pay close attention to. We’ll see what ends up happening with Murray’s status throughout the week and what kind of game plan Dennis Allen comes up with for Sunday’s game.
