3 themes behind Vikings win vs. Bears will help them thrive going into heart of their schedule
Dallas Turner’s 2 sacks and 10 pressures in back-to-back weeks have Minnesota’s defense looking like one of the best units in the league.
The Minnesota Vikings defense stole the show in Chicago, and the biggest star of the game was edge rusher Dallas Turner. The Vikings beat the Chicago Bears 9-3 in a game that was boring for 58 minutes before getting exciting in both good and bad ways. Turner’s breakout through two weeks of the 2025 NFL season deserves serious attention, and Brian Flores’ defense continues to look like one of the best units in the league.
Here’s what stood out on Sunday for the Vikings and what we can expect to project forward.
Dallas Turner is becoming a star
It’s fair to say we are witnessing a breakout season from Turner. After recording 10 pressures per NextGenStats, 7 quarterback hits, and a sack against the Green Bay Packers in Week 1, Turner followed it up with 2 sacks and 10 pressures against the Bears, per Pro Football Focus’ in-game charting. That’s absurd production.
Flores deserves credit for creating opportunities. He’s scheming Turner free runways and one-on-one matchups through creative blitz structures, dropping specific rushers to confuse protection calls. Turner is the beneficiary of that scheming, but these numbers aren’t inflated. When Turner gets those free runways, he’s making the most of them. He takes his explosive steps, slows his feet down, lets Caleb Williams react, and then makes a counter move once Williams commits to a direction. That technique showed up multiple times.
Turner was a key cog in containing Williams inside the pocket, and Andrew Van Ginkel complemented him with a sack and 5 pressures of his own. The Vikings finished with 20 total pressures on the day, per the initial charting of PFF.
We need to have the talk about Turner being a legitimate star. What we’re seeing isn’t a flash in the pan. It’s incredibly repeatable, and he’s proving that moving on from Jonathan Greenard was a smart decision. Adding Kyle Van Noy has eased their edge-rusher depth concerns, which was a real worry heading into the season.
Turner played just 310 snaps as a rookie, then posted 8.5 sacks last year with flashes mixed in alongside real struggles. This is why teams draft players who are a fresh 21. The development curve can mean so much. Turner is still younger than Jared Verse was when he debuted in the NFL. Think about that for a second.
Brian Flores’ defense dominated Caleb Williams
Williams was not great in this game. Unfortunately, he also ended up getting hurt, pulling up lame late in the contest. The Bears have said that WIlliams suffered a hamstring injury, but it looked really rough. The way Williams went down, grimacing in pain and unable to put weight on the leg, suggests it could be more than a simple pull and might be a full-blown tear with tendons involved, but imaging will tell us more about it.
Before the injury, the Vikings did a tremendous job confusing Williams and covering down the field. Colson Loveland had just one catch for 3 yards, which is now his season total through two games. Under pressure, Williams posted an 8.9 quarterback rating with a 5.2-second time to throw, per Pro Football Focus. Even when kept clean on 17 of his 32 dropbacks, he completed just 11 of 15 for 100 yards with an average depth of target of 2.5 yards. A lot of those completions were yards-after-catch opportunities for players like DeAndre Swift and Khalil Raymond near the line of scrimmage.
The initial PFF data showed 84.4% of Williams’ dropbacks were blitzed. Flores loves bringing five rushers. He led the NFL in 2024 in bringing five-plus and bringing three, and he was last in bringing four. That philosophy carried into this game and made Williams uncomfortable all afternoon.
The rushing attack wasn’t great for Chicago either. The Bears managed 31 carries for 136 yards, a 4.4 yards-per-carry average. None of their rushers topped 50 yards. That’s a significant win for Minnesota, especially in a weather game.
Vikings offense does enough to not lose
The Vikings offense was not very good. Carson Wentz had a few solid moments, but nothing was sustained. Aaron Jones was the engine, grinding out 104 yards on 23 carries with 53 yards coming after contact. He left the game briefly with what was described as a knee injury but returned and was effective. One of the final offensive plays was a pin-and-pull toss similar to the run Jordan Mason broke for a 28-yard gain last week, and Jones ripped off an explosive run of 15 yards on it as well.
Justin Jefferson finished with 3 catches for 55 yards. Jordan Addison had 2 for 21, including a critical third-down reception. T.J. Hockenson chipped in 3 for 29. The passing game totaled just 11 catches for 144 yards, but in a weather game, that’s hard to criticize when the team found a way to win.
The Vikings are now 2-0 in the NFC North. They’ve beaten the Bears at Soldier Field for the 7th consecutive time and the Packers at U.S. Bank Stadium for the 3rd consecutive year. What really stood out about the game was how the Vikings found a way to win ugly. That will help them figure things out long-term, especially with confidence.
