The Chicago Bears were bad on Monday night. The Minnesota Vikings were somehow even worse.
Even during a season in which quarterback injuries and poor play by many healthy QBs has led to some bad NFL games, particularly in prime time, the Chicago Bears’ 12-10 win over the Minnesota Vikings was an especially brutal watch. Say this much about the Bears:
They did put together one game-winning drive when they needed it.
Justin Fields hit a huge 36-yard pass to D.J. Moore with 55 seconds left, one of the first deep passes he hit in a night of conservative and bad offense.
That set up a go-ahead 30-yard field goal with 10 seconds left.
For a few weeks after the Vikings traded for him, Dobbs looked like a miracle worker.
He was shorthand for the mistakes teams made in not addressing their backup quarterback position, whether it was the Browns making an error trading him away or the Jets screwing up not trading for him.
Then Dobbs turned in one of the worst halves of football a quarterback can play.
His first completion came at the 10-minute mark of the second half.
When he threw his second interception, which was more on Jordan Addison for not catching it than Dobbs, he was 3 of 6 for nine yards with two interceptions and a 16.7 rating.
Then, on Minnesota’s next drive, he threw a pass that should have been a pick-six but Bears cornerback Jaylon Johnson dropped it.
He and the rest of the Vikings were simply horrendous.
The Bears couldn’t really take advantage. At the two-minute warning of the first half, the Vikings had 24 yards and yet trailed just 3-0.
When Dobbs finally completed a couple passes late in the half and Minnesota got in the red zone on a defensive pass interference penalty, he immediately took an intentional grounding penalty that stalled the drive. At least the Vikings got a field goal out of it.
Given how flat as the Vikings were as a team, and how bad Dobbs was playing, being tied 3-3 at halftime seemed like a huge win for Minnesota.
