Chicago Bears make unfortunate history in loss to Minnesota Vikings

As was seen too much in 2024, the Chicago Bears found a way to snatch a loss from the jaws of victory. The Bears led the Minnesota Vikings 17-6 to begin the fourth quarter, but allowed quarterback J.J. McCarthy to lead three touchdown drives in the final 15 minutes in his first start in the league.

The Bears had multiple opportunities to enhance their lead during the game. But sloppy quarterback play and penalties hurt Chicago in the season opener. Penalties were a major storyline during training camp, and they were not cleaned up before Monday night’s game, ultimately leading to a 27-24 loss at Soldier Field.

A historically bad night for Ben Johnson, Chicago Bears

Per Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune, the Bears had a historically bad night for penalties, giving up 127 penalty yards on 12 flags, the most given up in the season opener in franchise history.

The last time they had more than 12 penalties in Week 1 was in a 24-14 victory at Green Bay in 1952 when they overcame 15 infractions. This has to be fixed right away. There were four false starts (two by right guard Jonah Jackson, one by right tackle Darnell Wright and one by wide receiver DJ Moore), and that’s something that plagued the team in 2024 when the Bears tied for the second-most false starts in the league with 28.

Both cornerbacks — Nahshon Wright and Tyrique Stevenson — got tagged for pass interference and there was even a holding call on rookie running back Kyle Monangai on a blitz pickup that was declined.

“We said going into Week 1 that the team that would make the least number of mistakes would win the game,” coach Ben Johnson said. “Unfortunately, we were on the wrong side of that. We made too many there late in the game, myself included. When you look down at the stat sheet and you see 12 penalties, that’s got to get cleaned up in a hurry, yet we’ve been saying that all training camp, as well. We’ll find a way to get that done. It’s going to be a collective effort. No one’s pointing fingers.”

Presnap penalties rear ugly head again for Chicago Bears

The penalties on Wright and Stevenson were bound to happen. Without starting cornerbacks Kyler Gordon and Jaylon Johnson, Wright and Stevenson had a tall task to keep wide receivers in check with a game-breaking player like Justin Jefferson on the field.

However, the pre-snap penalties by the offense were inexcusable, and they’ve been a consistent problem for the unit since July. There doesn’t seem to be a fix coming in the near future. Johnson blamed the penalties for the Bears’ inability to get the running game going.

“Of course, when you have the penalties, hard to establish the run game quite like we wanted to,” Johnson said. “It felt like we were behind the sticks most of the time. Second-and-long, third-and-long is where we lived, which was a struggle for us offensively.”

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