Matthew Coller: Battle of the builds takes center stage in Vikings-Bears

We are starting to see the full picture of the competitive rebuild vs. full teardown come to life.

Oct 15, 2023; Chicago, Illinois, USA; Minnesota Vikings head coach Kevin O'Connell (left) shakes hands with Chicago Bears head coach Matt Eberflus after their game at Soldier Field. Mandatory Credit: Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images / Jamie Sabau-Imagn Images

Life comes at you fast in the NFL, huh.

In 2022, the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears both underwent complete overhauls of their organizational leadership. The Vikings hired Kwesi Adofo-Mensah as general manager and Kevin O’Connell as head coach while the Bears brought in GM Ryan Poles and HC Matt Eberflus.

The two teams had different lines of thinking about where to go from there. The Vikings ownership, forever against the idea of tanking, set sail on a “competitive rebuild,” in which they would attempt to do the near impossible in pro sports today: Retool on the fly.

The first leg of the competitive rebuild was 2022. That part was almost all competitive and no rebuild. They reworked contracts and stuck with veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins along with fellow veteran players like Adam Thielen and Dalvin Cook, bringing back Patrick Peterson and adding Za’Darius Smith. They took advantage of an NFC North where two other teams were tanking and won 13 games, many of which were barn burners.

Had the 2022 version been able to stop the New York Giants a single time in the first round of the playoffs, it would have been considered a massive victory for the anti-tankers. Instead all the weaknesses that Mike Zimmer had been battling in the subsequent years seemed to show up at once. A defense with too many holes, a quarterback short on playmaking and with a penchant to play conservatively when aggression was needed.

After 2022, we asked: Was it worth it to delay the inevitable rebuild?

Meanwhile, the Bears sold off everything and took a nose dive. They went all the way to the bottom, losing to the Vikings on the last day of the season to secure the No. 1 overall pick and then traded it for a king’s ransom to the Carolina Panthers. A robbery for the ages, so it would turn out.

At that moment, you would have said: Advantage Poles.

You definitely would have said it again in 2023 when it became evident that the Panthers were going to gift wrap the No. 1 overall pick Caleb Williams for Chicago. Poles by a million.

However, while the Bears were starting to use their cap space on things like acquiring and extending Montez Sweat, the Vikings had spent the previous offseason making shrewd decisions. They moved on from Kendricks, Thielen and Cook and elected not to give a contract extension to Cousins. O’Connell also hired Brian Flores as his defensive coordinator — a franchise-shifting move, as it would turn out.

That set the stage for a transition 2023 season. The early part of the season was a struggle and then as the group of new players was finding its way, Cousins tore his Achilles. The Vikings lost close game after close game with Josh Dobbs, Nick Mullens and Jaren Hall at the helm and finished with seven wins. The competitive part wasn’t met, but the rebuild part scored a huge victory, setting the Vikings up to pick in the top half of the draft where they could select a future QB.

Chicago faced a conundrum. While it was blatant that they needed to pick Williams, widely considered the best prospect in years, they had to decide whether to stick with Eberflus. His defense had worked magic down the stretch, giving Justin Fields an opportunity to play competitive ball and a 7-win season was viewed as significant progress. They elected to stick with Eberflus and hand him a shiny toy at QB.

The Vikings moved on from Cousins, allowing Atlanta to spend Arthur Blank’s hard-earned money on a 35-year old quarterback with to sewed together Achilles.

You would have never guessed that the Vikings would use their newfound cap space to have one of the best offseasons in recent memory. O’Connell wanted Sam Darnold as his bridge QB. Flores wanted Andrew Van Ginkel, Jonathan Greenard, Blake Cashman and Stephon Gilmore for his defense. Christmas lists were fulfilled.

Still, nobody outside the building bought it. The common sentiment about the Vikings was that they were a year away from contending. Somehow, the Bears weren’t getting the same treatment despite history suggesting rookie QBs rarely win right away. Maybe the media at large was trying to speak it into existence after having one of the largest markets in the country bumble around in mediocrity for so long.

The Vikings committed to sitting and developing their rookie QB rather than rushing him. The Bears were forced to play their guy, no matter how much work he needed. When JJ McCarthy got hurt, many felt it was a blessing in disguise because the option wouldn’t be on the table to force him into the game earlier than when he was ready.

Here we are, two-and-a-half years after the two regimes started out and the Vikings are legitimate contenders — some ranking them in the top five teams in the NFL — and the Bears are legitimately in peril.

It isn’t abnormal for a rebuilding team with a rookie QB to be 4-6 but with the amount of attention on Williams and the previous struggles of Eberflus to win over the locker room, that qualifies as peril. They have already thrown one man, offensive coordinator Shane Waldron, overboard and it seems inevitable that Eberflus is next.

Now everyone is asking: How could the Bears make the same mistake three times? Keeping an embattled head coach in place and pairing him with a rookie QB, only to fire the coach. What’s the definition of insanity?

The Vikings are on the complete opposite of the spectrum. O’Connell’s bridge QB plot worked to the letter and his message that the team was far better than outside expectations has been a home run. No doubt when the NFL Players Association rankings come out again, they will vote him a top coach again. Playing a huge role in turning around Darnold’s career gives ownership and fans immense confidence that he can guide JJ McCarthy when the time comes. And, despite a botched 2022 draft, the free agency wizardry of last offseason adds to to belief that spending Kirk Cash on free agents and trade acquisitions around a rookie QB contract will work.

But as Lee Corso might say: Not so fast.

The book isn’t yet written on our team builders. The winds of Roger Goodell’s National Football League can change quickly.

As the Vikings head to Soldier Field on Sunday, they are in the driver’s seat to make the playoffs and potential be a road favorite in Round 1. However, if they do not beat the Bears, suddenly the road becomes more dicey. In the coming weeks they will see a bevy of good quarterbacks, from Kyler Murray to Cousins to Geno Smith to Jordan Love to Jared Goff. You will notice that those teams are also fighting for playoff position — they are no Jags or Titans.

If the Vikings let an 8-2 start slip from their grasp, there may be more uncertainty than once seemed. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell posted on Blue Sky that the Vikings have the second oldest team in terms of which players are taking the most snaps this year. We might question the strategy of moving so many draft picks and hoping to win free agency. It’s hard to say that they’ll be in a bad position with McCarthy on the way but the roster building strategy may feel like it has more cracks than it seems right now. The coaching would receive a lot less adulation than it’s currently getting.

Vikings fans’ biggest fear of remaining as a middling team would creep in.

From the Bears perspective, a win against the Vikings would be a jolt of energy after Williams played much better last week and — if we’re being honest — they got screwed out of a win over the Packers by the referees ignoring multiple infractions on a blocked field goal.

Chicago is no Titans. They have a positive point differential and they are two weird game-ending plays away from being 6-4 and right in the middle of the race.

With their schedule, it’s hard to see them actually making the playoffs but if Williams has a turnaround confidence-building game against the Vikings and rolls through the rest of the season looking like the next franchise quarterback, it could be a turning point for the entire organization.

If the result goes the way we expect and the Vikings win, they will remain the darlings that everyone wanted the Bears to be and the Bears might as well start the coach search now.

Or it could be just one game and everything otherwise stays the same. Who knows.

Clearly Sunday’s game won’t determine which franchise is going to be in a better place going forward but it’s a reminder of the different ways they chose to operate and how the 2022 hires acted as a starting point for both GMs and HCs. There’s no way to avoid comparing them to each other. And there’s the fact that both teams do enter the game teetering on the edge of something. The Vikings are a few more wins away from having one of the best seasons of the last two decades and giving KOC a lifetime contract. The Bears are a few more losses away from wondering why they didn’t fire Eberflus and draft Drake Maye.