Inside The Vikings

Winners and Losers From Vikings' Sloppy Loss to Bears on MNF

The Vikings' offense played very poorly. The defense, as usual, played well enough to win.

Will Ragatz

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That was a mess. Josh Dobbs threw four interceptions on Monday night in the Vikings' 12-10 loss to the Bears, an ugly home defeat against a team that didn't score a single offensive touchdown.

Let's go over some winners and losers from the Vikings' side of things.

Losers

Josh Dobbs

This one goes without saying. It was a very rough game for Dobbs, as is always the case when you throw four picks. 

The first one was an underthrow. The second was partially Jordan Addison's fault, but the timing/velocity/location weren't perfect from Dobbs. The third was a deflection on a fourth down where he was trying to fit a ball into a tight window. He threw the fourth one right at a Bears DT while being hit for yet another deflected pick. Mixed in there was a dropped pick-six in the first half.

Everything was poor from Dobbs on Monday night: Decision-making, timing, and accuracy. He also wasn't able to get anything going on the ground. To his credit, he kept playing and eventually threw a go-ahead touchdown pass to T.J. Hockenson, but this was a total stinker from Dobbs that raises questions about whether or not he'll remain the Vikings' starting quarterback after the bye.

Kevin O'Connell

O'Connell deserves his share of blame for the Vikings' brutal offensive performance. Maybe the Bears' defense dictated it to a degree, but Dobbs was used as a regular dropback passer in this game. There wasn't much creativity in terms of utilizing his dual-threat ability.

The Vikings went 0 for 2 on fourth down, but I didn't have an issue with either of those attempts. What was brutal from O'Connell was going run, run, screen pass from the Bears' 43 after Anthony Barr recovered a fumble with 3:28 to play. The Vikings had a chance to put the game away there and played conservatively, much like they did last week against the Broncos.

"You're fighting that battle between being aggressive and risking giving them a short field if we turn it over again, versus trying to make sure you're making them use their timeouts and then trusting the side of the football, the defense, that had gotten us to this point in the game the last two weeks," O'Connell said.

Yes, the Vikings had turned the ball over four times already when that series started. They still needed to be aggressive there to try to put the game away and not ask the defense to come up with another stop. That's been the story two weeks in a row.

Jordan Addison

This wasn't a great game for Addison, who has had a strong rookie season but hasn't caught a touchdown or exceeded 70 yards in any of the four games since Kirk Cousins got hurt. Dobbs' second interception hit his hands. There was also a play on the Vikings' touchdown drive where Addison was wide open for a score but lost track of his position on the field as the throw carried him just barely out of bounds. He caught six of his ten targets for 39 yards.

Ryan Wright

The second season for the Vikings' undrafted punter has not been a good one. He's averaging just 41.5 net yards per punt, with nearly as many touchbacks (six) as punts downed inside the 20 (nine). On Monday night, after the Vikings' aforementioned possession up 10-9 went nowhere, he had an opportunity to pin the Bears deep in their own territory. Instead, his punt from the 48 went out of bounds at the 22 for a net of just 26 yards. That's not good enough in that situation.

"You're hoping to get some field position and make them have to go further than 78 yards when you're punting from right there," O'Connell said. "We gotta get a little cleaner and better in our punts to try to pin people down deep. There's been enough of them now that it's going to be a point of emphasis moving forward."

Winners

Danielle Hunter

Hunter just continues to be the Vikings' best defender and one of the most impactful edge players in the league. He might've been the best player on the field for either team in this game. This was his final line: 9 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 3 QB hits, 2 tackles for loss, 1 forced fumble.

Hunter had a TFL on the Bears' opening possession, then split a sack with Josh Metellus on the next series. He came up with a critical strip sack in the fourth quarter that set up the Vikings' lone touchdown drive. And as always, he was effective against the run as well.

With 13.5 sacks, Hunter is tied with T.J. Watt for the NFL lead. He's 1.5 away from both setting a career high and passing Jared Allen on the Vikings' all-time leaderboard.

Josh Metellus

Metellus is still thriving in his hybrid safety/linebacker/pass-rusher role under Brian Flores. He had two forced fumbles in this game, the latter of which was recovered by Anthony Barr late in the fourth quarter. He also split the early sack with Hunter and was nearby when Hunter caused the Bears' first takeaway. Metellus, who signed a contract extension before the season despite mostly playing on special teams in his first three years, has been worth every penny and then some for the Vikings.

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Will Ragatz
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