Vikings Open as 2.5-Point Favorites Against Bears in Week 10

The Vikings will take their two-game winning streak to Soldier Field for Monday Night Football.

Fresh off of two straight divisional wins, the Vikings will have to exercise some demons if they're going to make it three in a row. Their next game is a Monday Night Football matchup with the Bears at Soldier Field in Chicago, a venue where the Vikings have lost 16 of their last 19 dating back to 2001.

The Bears are struggling mightily right now, having dropped three straight games after a 5-1 start. Their offense was shut out through three quarters in a 24-17 loss to the Titans on Sunday, managing a couple garbage time touchdowns to make the scoreline more respectable.

Meanwhile, the Vikings are rolling behind Dalvin Cook, who has 478 yards from scrimmage and six touchdowns in wins over the Packers and Lions over the past two weeks. 

Given that context, I guess it shouldn't be all that surprising that the Vikings have opened as 2.5-point favorites against the Bears for next Monday's game, according to multiple sportsbooks.

Still, it feels very strange to think about the Vikings being favored for a primetime game at Soldier Field. That place has been a house of horrors for them this entire century, particularly during night games. The Vikings suffered painful primetime losses in Chicago in 2009, 2011, 2016, and 2018, although they did win on MNF there in 2017. 

Throughout the past two decades of Vikings-Bears games in Chicago, it often hasn't mattered if the Vikings were the better team. They've just found ways to lose at Soldier Field.

Given their historical struggles in that stadium and Kirk Cousins' highly-publicized 0-9 record on Monday Night Football, the Vikings will have to overcome a lot in the narrative department to win this one.

Cook will be looking for his first big game at Soldier Field. He was injured when the teams met there in 2017 and hasn't been a factor over the past two years. Cook had one of the worst games of his career in Chicago in 2018, touching the ball 12 times for 10 yards and losing a fumble. Last season, in an ugly 16-6 loss, Cook was held to 70 yards on 20 touches.

Cousins was sacked six times in that game. He's 0 for 3 against the Bears as a member of the Vikings.

This is a huge game for the Vikings. If they win, they'll be 4-5 heading into three straight winnable home games against the Cowboys, Panthers, and Jaguars (combined record: 6-20). Coming up short in Chicago once again would drop them to 3-6 and deal a major blow to their chances of getting back into the playoff conversation.

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