Why Minnesota Vikings Couldn't Stop the Chicago Bears Offense

A thoroughly embarrassing performance set the Minnesota Vikings back in a 21-13 loss to the Chicago Bears on Sunday. No single unit is exempt from criticism after the thumping. Considering it had much higher expectations entering the divisional matchup, the defense’s struggles move to the forefront.

Jay Cutler and the Bears offense managed only 21 points but could have scored many more in what was a resounding beatdown of the Vikings.

Chicago continuously marched the football, racking up 468 yards, the most the Vikings defense has given up in a game this season. Cutler and his receivers accounted for 330 of those yards through the air, also a season-high for the Vikings defense.

The Bears offense was slumping before Sunday’s game, and the Vikings defense was playing its best football, so what went wrong?

Matt Forte was the biggest problem that the Bears presented. Despite immense talent at the receiver position, Forte is the driving force behind the Bears offense. The Vikings took the necessary steps to respect his capabilities, as Bleacher Report’s Matt Bowen mentions:

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Forte's impact. Needed an 8th defender in box. MT @patel_jesse: @MattBowen41 helps that the Vikings played man on the bears.

— Matt Bowen (@MattBowen41) November 16, 2014"

Mike Zimmer tried to pick the lesser of two evils by walking down a safety into the box, supplementing the run defense and restricting Forte. That left looks with a single-high safety and featured man coverage on the outside, giving Cutler and the Bears this pre-snap look often:

Credit: NFL Game Rewind

Similar alignments left Xavier Rhodes, Captain Munnerlyn and Josh Robinson on islands for a majority of the game, only given remote help from a single safety. For Munnerlyn and especially Robinson, the results were absolutely devastating.

Chicago’s two towers on the outside, Alshon Jeffery (6’3” 216 pounds) and Brandon Marshall (6’4” 230 pounds), repeatedly elevated above Minnesota’s cornerbacks and came down with contested catches. The pair combined for 18 receptions, 225 yards and three touchdowns, completely dismantling the Minnesota defense in the process.

Zimmer’s frequent blitzing only isolated cornerbacks further, eliminating any bracket coverage that would steer Cutler off his big targets. The rush’s inability to then get to Cutler enabled him to pick apart the Vikings all day.

Robinson was Cutler’s most frequented victim. At only 5’10”, the CB was always at a disadvantage against the likes of Marshall and Jeffery. On top of executing better, Minnesota needed a more variable game plan to reduce Robinson’s exposure to these extreme mismatches.

When the Vikings did opt for man coverage, better disguises could have turned Cutler away. On numerous plays, the QB was able to identify man coverage with a single-high safety from the initial alignment and dial up throws to Marshall or Jeffery without ever reading the coverage post-snap. That’s a fateful recipe for the Minnesota defense.

Making matters worse, the Vikings failed to properly adjust their plan in order to aid Robinson in coverage, letting the wolves gnaw on his bones instead. Immediately after the game, Zimmer admitted he did a poor job varying looks to throw off the Bears, via Chris Tomasson of the Pioneer Press:

"

Zimmer says he wished he would have changed some things up against Chicago tall receivers

— Chris Tomasson (@christomasson) November 16, 2014"

On many occasions when Cutler targeted Robinson, the CB maintained position well and located the football, but he couldn’t contend with the height of the receiver or the precise ball placement Cutler threw with. That all goes back to the rhythm Cutler threw with and the confidence that he had single coverage on a consistent basis.

From Robinson and Munnerlyn, more needs to be done in order to compensate for lack of height. Both have gone and will keep going up against taller receivers throughout their NFL careers, so just chalking up displays like these to height deficiencies won’t cut it. Former Vikings linebacker Ben Leber agrees:

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Robinson height is not an excuse. He has to make up for it with footwork, physicality, awareness. But jump balls vs 6’4" WRs are tough

— Ben Leber (@nacholeber) November 16, 2014"

On a few different plays, Robinson was jerked around by the physicality of Jeffery, not able to hold his ground in coverage, much less reroute the receiver.

Maybe more disappointing than the jump-ball failures was the consistent short throws Robinson and the rest of the Vikings secondary gave up, too often allowing huge cushions for the Bears receivers to work with, even on third downs. When Vikings cornerbacks tried to challenge Jeffery or Marshall, they got beat. The same held true when they tried to give space.

There’s another reason to be upset with the defense’s ineptitude. That initial reason for leaving the cornerbacks isolated with such talented receivers, to stop for Forte, failed. Forte ripped off 117 rushing yards on 26 carries, good for 4.5 yards per carry.

In all aspects of defensive play, the Vikings were a step behind on Sunday. Cornerback play was the most glaring issue, but all three levels of the defense failed to show up.

The rush did little to disrupt Cutler and aid the secondary outside of a single pressure-induced interception. Linebackers had trouble getting off blocks to play the run or defend screen passes. And of course, defensive backs could not contend with the Bears receivers.

It was that kind of day for the Vikings defense. Now Zimmer and his unit will go back to the drawing board looking for answers. With Aaron Rodgers and the high-flying Packers strutting into town next week, they had better find them.

Statistics via ESPN.com and Pro-Football-Reference.