Vikings 38, Bears 10

By Kevin Schroeder
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Updated: January 17, 2017

Grading Primer (I wrote this about Michigan, but the grading procedures are still relevant.

The Bears ended their season with a bang. Unfortunately, that bang was the sound of them shooting themselves in the foot. It was all Minnesota as the Bears defense couldn’t slow down the Vikings offense. Matt Barkley had another terrible game, to the point where David Fales came in and reminded us why the Bears went out and got Matt Barkley in the first place.

Player Grades

“Wait, you graded this game?”

Yep. The things I do for you people.

“Why?”

Uh…for the sake of thoroughness, mostly.

Takeaways

There aren’t any. The Bears were long out of playing contention and many of these guys won’t be with the team next year. Performances like this are why. As for the season as a whole, turns out having several key players get hurt is not a recipe for success. Who knew? The 2016 Chicago Bears: Don’t cry because it happened, smile because it’s over.

#Fire[Insert Coach Here] status: Everyone’s coming back and that’s fine. There were enough positives to suggest that the team can be pretty good next year, given another off-season to shape the roster and better injury luck. As far as problems with the coaching in this game, I wouldn’t have called quite so many run plays that require linemen to reach block. Multiple times, someone couldn’t pull it off. That’s understandable, as it’s not an easy thing to ask of someone.

Yet To Be Named Gimmicky Award Meant To Show Who The Best Overall Performers Were

If you have an idea of what I should call this, let me know. Twitter handle and e-mail address are at the end of the blog.

Anyway, up to 3 may be awarded per player. Not necessarily the highest-graded players since different grades mean different things to different players (refer to the primer).

Offense

3: Cody Whitehair, Jordan Howard

2: Ted Larsen, Josh Sitton

1: Charles Leno, Jr.

Defense

3: Jerrell Freeman

1: Adrian Amos, Willie Young

Yet To Be Named Gimmicky Award Meant To Show Who The Best Overall Performers Were Count