The Bears responded to the challenge after losing two straight with a 28 to 10 victory over the Vikings at home this weekend. After missing last week’s game against the 49ers, Jay Cutler returned to action and he didn’t disappoint. Cutler was 23 of 31 for 181 yards with 1 TD and 1 INT. The Bears not only had the passing game working, but the running game as well as the Bears amassed 113 yards rushing, led by Michael Bush who had 61 yards on 21 carries, with 2 TDs.
Overall the Bears offense was mistake free except for the interception by Cutler. A key factor in the Bears success was the offense line that did good job protecting Cutler, allowing only 1 sack after giving up 6 sacks last week. They made changes up front, benching two starters, as Gabe Carimi and Chilo Rachal were replaced by Chris Spencer and Jonathan Scott. This looked like a great move the coaching staff.
Brandon Marshall had a bounce back performance as well, hauling in 12 catches for 92 yards, and going over 1,000 yards for the season (1017). Marshall becomes the first Chicago receiver to hit the plateau since Marty Booker in 2002 (1189). For the season, Marshall has 81 receptions for 1,017 yards and eight touchdowns, ranking tied for seventh, 12th and tied for 12th respectively in Bears single-season history.
Lovie Smith on Jay Cutler coming back:
“Jay is one of the best quarterbacks in the league so everyone needs their star quarterback playing. Of course we are no different. We expected him to give us a boost and as I said early on, I thought he played outstanding ball.”
On bouncing back from big losses, Lovie said, “We have good football teams come back from those. We have a veteran crew and it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, you have to learn from your mistakes (we’ll say from that last game) and go back to the practice field. We had an excellent work week even though it was a short week. It was a game we had to have. Again, a division home game you have to stand up for it.”
Cutler on whether he was able to find and sustain an offensive rhythm:
“Yeah, we wanted to see some rhythm and a little sense of urgency. Guys just doing their job, play after play and getting some drives together. I thought the offensive line did a good job. There were a few moving pieces in there, with some guys filling in. under the circumstances, they played well.”
As far as the Bears defense, they bounce back after a tough game last week against the 49ers. The defense recorded three takeaways against the Vikings, and now has 33 on the season. Their 30 takeaways entering week 12 was tops in the NFL.
Henry Melton, on the improvement from last week:
“We just tried to get it corrected. Someone was also just not in the right place. We just got to work on that.”
On what worked today, Melton said, “We were doing a lot of stunting. We just wanted to make (Adrian) Peterson go one way. It kind of hurts your rushing times, but we were still getting there on the movement. We definitely just wanted to make him go one way.”
Brian Urlacher, on bouncing back from last week:
“It’s a home a home division game. We expect to win all those. (We had) a tough team coming in here playing well, but we took care of business.”
The Bears move to 8-3 and the Vikings fall to 6-5 on the season. The Bears must keep the balanced attack with both the running game and passing game as they prepare to take on a tough Seahawks team next week. If they stick with the same formula they had against the Vikings, the Bears will victorious, but it all starts upfront. The defense must get to rookie quarterback Russell Wilson, and the offense must protect Cutler to give him time to throw the football.
