The NFL’s most tantalizing matchup of the Week 2 schedule takes place at Soldier Field in Chicago on Sunday when the Bears host the Vikings. With all due respect to Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell and Bears defensive coordinator Dennis Allen, the attention will be on Vikings’ defensive play-caller Brian Flores and Bears’ offensive play-caller Ben Johnson, two of the best in the sport.
There’s Johnson, bringing back a Bears’ run-game tradition that dates back to the days of Red Grange and carries through the times of Gale Sayers in the 1960s and Walter Payton in the 1980s. Johnson’s backs, D’Andre Swift and Kyle Monangai, aren’t top-five picks or Hall of Famers like Sayers and Payton, but they’re no strangers to lighting up the Chicago box scores. Then there’s Flores. This Vikings’ defense is not the Purple People Eaters, but Flores’s tactics are worth a ferocious nickname of their own.
