Vikings sneak past Bears following ex-teammate's fourth-quarter blunders, take first place

The day began like something out of a dream for the Vikings fans who strolled through U.S. Bank Stadium's glass gates on an idyllic Twin Cities afternoon, roared their approval as the videoboards showed the final moments of the Packers' loss to the Giants in London and giddily watched their favorite team build an 18-point lead against the Bears through two near-flawless quarters, and Kirk Cousins and Justin Jefferson mounted an assault on the team's record books.

Cousins completed his first 17 passes Sunday, breaking Tommy Kramer's record for consecutive completions in a game. With his third catch on the first drive of his 38th career game — a crossing route where he ran undisturbed through the middle of the Bears' defense — Jefferson surpassed Randy Moss' record for the most receptions in his first three years with the team. After the game, coach Kevin O'Connell presented the quarterback and receiver with the first two of the three game balls he awarded in the locker room.

O'Connell awarded the final game ball to Cameron Dantzler after the cornerback stripped former teammate Ihmir Smith-Marsette for a fumble that might have saved the Vikings' 29-22 win in the final minute. The turnover was critical even in a game where the Vikings went 12-for-15 on third downs, held the ball for 36 minutes, 44 seconds and averaged nearly 6 yards on each of their 74 plays.

The fact the Vikings reached the point where they needed to pick up four third downs on a seven-minute fourth-quarter touchdown drive, and survived because of the second undisciplined moment from a player they cut in training camp, might be the most concerning takeaway from their win over Chicago. But they are 4-1, owners of a three-game win streak that spans two continents and three division victories that make their early place atop the NFC North even more enviable.

A team that has spent the past two seasons insisting it was better than its record is instead offering self-recriminations after ugly victories. There is, the Vikings' longest-tenured player asserts, a real difference between the two postures.

"It's a real thing," said safety Harrison Smith, who has played in as many Pro Bowls (six) as playoff games during his career. "It's not real, like quantifiable, but if Cam doesn't strip the ball, who knows what happens? To me, we had opportunities to make that [final margin] a couple scores, maybe three scores. That's where we want to go."

The Vikings have won three consecutive games by one possession. "We're getting some good reps in critical situations — which is good," the 33-year-old Smith said, with a smirk that underscored how much he wished the Vikings' victories could be less stressful.

But, he added, "We're winning, which is awesome. I do not take that for granted."

For much of the first half, it appeared the Vikings' fourth victory of the season would be easy.

They chose to take the ball after winning the opening coin toss, with O'Connell opting to set a forceful tone even if the Vikings' analytics staff "might get angry with me at times for stuff like that." They traveled 86 yards on a 12-play touchdown drive where Jefferson feasted on free releases and Cousins hit him four times for 55 yards. Cousins found him three times on the Vikings' next drive, stepping up in the pocket to hit Jefferson for 15 yards before Dalvin Cook scored on his second short touchdown run of the half.

Cousins had tied Kramer's completion streak record on the Vikings' third drive when he swung a pass out to Jefferson, before the receiver fired across the field for Cook. The play gained 23 yards; Cousins broke Kramer's record instead with a push pass to Jalen Reagor for a touchdown, and the Vikings had built a 21-3 lead.

According to ESPN Stats and Information, there was not a Bears defender within a yard of a Vikings receiver on any of Cousins' 32 completions.

"I don't think I was ripping it into brutally tight windows or having to throw and kind of be this hero," Cousins said. "If you go back and watch those 17 throws, I would think you'd see they're very automatic, which I think my point is it says a lot about the plan, the coaches and my teammates kind of putting me in that position."

So many Vikings-Bears games in recent years had turned into quagmires that left enough space for something strange to happen; the opening half of O'Connell's first game vs. Chicago found the coach at his most daring and creative. The Vikings held the ball for 22:32 in the first half, as Jefferson caught 10 passes for 138 yards and Cook gained 53 yards on 10 carries.

But the strange moments came anyway, courtesy of a special teams unit that had saved the Vikings' 28-25 win over the Saints in London the week before.

Ryan Wright shanked a punt 15 yards, and a D.J. Wonnum holding penalty on the same play helped the Bears start at midfield before Darnell Mooney separated himself from Chandon Sullivan and made an acrobatic one-handed catch for 39 yards. The Bears finished the drive with a David Montgomery touchdown to make it 21-10, and though the Vikings drove into field goal range in the final minute of the half, Greg Joseph missed his 53-yard attempt wide right.

Bears quarterback Justin Fields engineered a touchdown drive to start the third quarter, and his fourth-down scramble on the next drive, where he eluded Za'Darius Smith after Danielle Hunter and D.J. Wonnum collided with a Bears offensive lineman, set up another Chicago field goal.

And after cornerback Kindle Vildor sunk into zone coverage and picked off a Cousins pass for Adam Thielen into traffic, the Bears kicked another field goal to complete an improbable 19-0 run, taking a 22-21 lead with just over nine minutes left.

"I had taken that flat route a couple times last week, a time earlier in this game with [tight end Irv Smith Jr., where] a guy was open elsewhere," Cousins said. "I kind of was allowing those previous plays to start to try to hunt something up, where really I should have just said, 'Let's just play this in a vacuum, and take the guy that's open in the flat, and settle for a shorter gain,' instead of trying to use previous reps to hunt something up that really wasn't there."

It left the Vikings, in a game they'd begun with few concerns, searching for an answer. They found one, with a bruising drive that took seven minutes off the clock, covered 75 yards in 17 plays and required four third-down conversions: a 2-yard run from Alexander Mattison, a 12-yard Cousins completion to Smith, a 5-yard scramble from Cousins up the middle and an 11-yard Cousins-to-Mattison connection. Cousins' QB sneak for the eventual winning points, during which the quarterback moved under center after lining up in the shotgun while Cook motioned out of the backfield, also came on third down.

Smith-Marsette's block in the back on Dantzler had wiped out a 52-yard touchdown run from Fields early in the fourth quarter. On the Bears' final drive, Smith-Marsette held the ball loosely and tried to cut back inside for additional yardage instead of going out of bounds. Dantzler ripped the ball away and slid to the turf after a 16-yard return to deny the Bears a chance to take the ball back.

"I was on the sideline right there, and it took everything not to run out there when he got it," defensive end Dalvin Tomlinson said. "You love to see stuff like that."

Two kneel-downs later, the Vikings were celebrating for the third consecutive week. However they got there, Harrison Smith has been around long enough not to take that fact lightly.

"Winning can become infectious," he said. "It's not always pretty. But last week wasn't pretty. The only one that was pretty was the first one. Hopefully we can get some more of those."