One division. Two teams. Two rivals. Two simultaneous rebuilds. Two different paths, yet sharing the same goal. This is the story about two NFL franchises trying to finally find their franchise QB and compete for Super Bowls. But, above all, it is a story about how there isn’t one single path to follow, especially in the NFL.
How did the Bears get there?
The Chicago Bears, after another failed season, fired HC Matt Nagy and GM Ryan Pace after the 2021 season. They started their tenures well, winning the NFC North in 2018 with Mitchell Trubisky at QB. However, this was followed by two 8-8 seasons and a 6-11 one.
It was very similar to how the Bears were when Nagy was hired in 2018. In 2017, after keeping their HC for one season too long, they fired John Fox after Trubisky’s rookie season. In 2021, after keeping their HC for one season too long, they fired Nagy after Justin Fields’s rookie season.
The Bears are stuck in this cycle for almost a decade, cycling through coaches and first-round quarterbacks. The difference in 2021 is that they also fired Ryan Pace, who had been the GM since 2015. In 2022 arrived Ryan Poles, a young executive with the Chiefs. He brought in Matt Eberflus as the head coach, and there was hope they’d be able to help Justin Fields be the QB he could be.
How did the Vikings get there?
At the same time, just two states to the northwest, the Vikings had their first back-to-back losing seasons since 2013-2014. The way the 2021 season happened for the Vikings was just the final nail in the coffin of a leadership that wasn’t united since signing Kirk Cousins in 2018, starting a power struggle between GM Rick Spielman and HC Mike Zimmer.
The ownership decided to pull the plug on both, firing Spielman, who has been in charge since 2006 and the de facto GM since 2012, and Zimmer, the coach since 2014, who led arguably the best Vikings’ defense since the Purple People Eaters.
For GM, the Vikings opted for an unorthodox signing, bringing in Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, a former Wall Street trader. In the NFL, Kwesi worked for 7 seasons with the 49ers and was the VP of football operations for two years in Cleveland before getting the job in Minnesota. He’d bring a totally new point of view for the Vikings in the decision-making process. His first decision, though, may have been the best of them all.
To the HC job, the Vikings signed Kevin O’Connell, the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator. Working under Sean McVay, O’Connell helped the team win the Super Bowl in 2021.
So, in the same year, both the Bears and Vikings had brand-new GM-HC duos, starting their rebuilds at the same time. And they took totally different paths.
2022 – The First Step
Ryan Poles and the Bears chose the “traditional” path, trading players to gather more Draft capital. In just his second month at the helm, Poles sent EDGE Khalil Mack, one of their best players, to the Chargers for a second-round pick. Later in the year, he sent LB Roquan Smith to the Ravens for another second-rounder. Tearing everything to the ground made the Bears the worst team in the league, finishing the season with a 3-14 record and the 1st overall pick in the next year.
Kwesi Adofo-Mensah, on the other hand, preached about a “competitive rebuild” since Day 1. With a good roster and Justin Jefferson still on a rookie contract, the Vikings knew they had a team capable of competing. The idea was to clean the cap situation without sacrificing their ability to compete, and he did just that.
Although his first draft didn’t produce any high-level players, the free agency period and an already good roster were good enough. Even with one of the worst defenses in the league, Kevin O’Connell’s offense helped Kirk Cousins have his best season, and Justin Jefferson was named Offensive Player of the Year. With an 11-0 record in one-possession games, the Vikings finished the season 13-4, winning the NFC North with ease. But the defensive woes were too much to overcome. The Giants’ offense scored four touchdowns, and Daniel Jones had over 300 yards in a 31-24 win.
2023 – The Rebuild Takes Shape
Chicago Bears
With the first pick in the Draft, Poles had a choice. He could select Alabama’s Bryce Young or Ohio State’s C.J. Stroud, the two best quarterbacks in the class, pick Alabama’s Will Anderson Jr., the best defender, or trade out of the pick. He chose the latter, getting a small ransom from the Panthers. In exchange for the pick, Poles got WR D.J. Moore, the 9th and 61st picks in 2023, a 2024 first-round pick, and a 2025 second-round pick.
The Bears improved their record in 2023, finishing the year 7-10, but there were still glaring problems. Although their run game was very good on both sides of the ball, they couldn’t throw the ball or defend against the pass. It was the beginning of the downfall for Eberflus, but he was given another year.
The silver lining for the Bears? Bryce Young, whom the Panthers drafted with the first pick, was arguably the worst QB in the league, and the Panthers finished with the worst record in the NFL. This meant the Bears would not only get the first overall pick for the second year in a row, but that they’d get Caleb Williams, one of the best QB prospects of the century.
Minnesota Vikings
The 2023 season wasn’t very good for the Vikings. They fired DC Ed Donatell after the 2022 fiasco, signing Brian Flores to his place. Flores calls his defense like he’s a mad scientist, and he deployed a blitz-everybody/drop-everybody to compensate for a lack of talent.
Adofo-Mensah also began the hardest part of the rebuild: getting rid of expensive players. He cut WR Adam Thielen, RB Dalvin Cook, and LB Eric Kendricks, respected leaders and fan favorites. In 2023 came the first draft hit of Kwesi’s tenure, selecting WR Jordan Addison. With 19 TDs in his first two seasons, Addison became a feature in O’Connell’s offense.
With turnover woes, the Vikings lost a couple of early games that they could’ve won. Then, the worst happened. In a Week 5 game against the Chiefs, Justin Jefferson went down with a hamstring injury. He’d end up losing 7 games with this injury, plus another half-game after a hit against the Raiders sent him to the hospital.
After losing Jefferson, the Vikings managed to turn the season around, with a surprising win against the 49ers. Dominating against the Packers in Green Bay a week later, the season ended once again for the Vikings. In a normal dropback, Cousins felt a pop in his leg, hopping off the field. Tests confirmed the worst: he had torn his Achilles. This would be the last game Cousins played for the Vikings. With a revolving door of QBs, and as opposing offenses figured Flores’ defense out, the Vikings finished the season 7-10.
2024 – New Quarterbacks For Both
Chicago Bears
With Caleb Williams in sight, it was obvious that Justin Field’s time was done. He’d end up traded to the Steelers for a sixth-round pick. There were some discussions among the media and fans about whether Eberflus should be the coach in 2024 or not, but he was given another chance.
With two picks in the top 10, this was everything Poles had been working for since 2022. He selected Williams with the first pick, the third time the Bears used a top 10 pick on a QB since 2017. With his own pick, the ninth overall, he selected WR Rome Odunze, a great prospect who had the bad luck to be in the same class as Marvin Harrison Jr. and Malik Nabers. With just three other picks in the Draft, Poles didn’t do much, but Williams and Odunze seemed plenty.
They should transform the Bears’ offense, but Williams’ first season wasn’t very smooth. Although he had three very good receivers in D.J. Moore, Rome Odunze, and Keenan Allen, plus Cole Kmet at tight end, a below-average running game, one of the worst offensive lines in the league, and three different offensive coordinators hindered his progression as a rookie. He had great moments, but he struggled more than was expected.
The Bears started great, with a 4-2 record before their Week 7 bye. They were beating the Washington Commanders, led by second overall pick Jayden Daniels, until the last play of the game. A Hail Mary debacle by CB Tyrique Stevenson, who was seen arguing with fans as Daniels was trying to buy time for the throw, and who was the one who tipped the ball into Noah Brown’s hands. And it only went South from there.
The Commanders’ loss was the first of ten in a row, finishing 5-12 after a 4-2 start. In these losses, the Bears found new ways to lose games. In Week 8, the Bears lost in a last-second blocked field goal against the Packers. Although they won against their rivals in Week 18, this would’ve been their first win against the Packers since the first game of the 2018 season. Just one week after, they lost to the Vikings in overtime after fighting back from a double-digit deficit in the fourth quarter, even recovering an onside kick.
The final straw for Eberflus came in the next week, against the Lions on Thanksgiving. With the possibility of at least trying a field goal to take the game to overtime, one of the worst game-managing decisions I’ve ever seen made the Bears lose the game with a timeout in their hands. This led the Bears to fire their coach mid-season for the first time in franchise history.
Minnesota Vikings
No one expected it, but the Vikings were one of the best teams in the league last season. They let Cousins and Danielle Hunter walk in free agency, opening up space for new players. In one of the best free agency periods a team has had, Adofo-Mensah brought in five key contributors. Aaron Jones was signed to be the new running back, Blake Cashman came to be the linebacker, and Jonathan Greenard and Andrew Van Ginkel were the new pass-rushers. After a backup year with the 49ers, Sam Darnold had a chance to revive his career and get rid of the bust label.
Darnold had over 4300 yards and 35 touchdowns. Greenard and Ginkel combined for 23.5 sacks and 68 pressures. All three earned Pro Bowl nods, and Van Ginkel was also named 2nd-Team All-Pro. Jones and Cashman didn’t go to the Pro Bowl, but Jones had career-high rushing yards, even behind a terrible iOL, while Cashman was one of the defense’s leaders, finishing the season with 112 tackles and 4.5 sacks.
In a big QB Draft class, Kwesi and O’Connell knew it was their chance of getting their franchise QB. They zeroed in on Michigan’s J.J. McCarthy, who had just helped the team to a 15-0 season, beating Alabama in the Rose Bowl before comfortably beating Washington in the Championship Game. After an impressive preseason start for McCarthy, a meniscus tear sidelined him for the entire season. With another first-round pick after an early trade with the Texans, the Vikings also took Dallas Turner, considered to be the best defender in the class, with the 17th pick.
Sam Darnold would probably be the starter anyway, but this meant he was the only option. O’Connell maximized what he did well, and the Vikings were phenomenal. A 5-0 start, with wins against the 49ers, Texans, and Packers, the Vikings quickly became one of the most feared in the league. Back-to-back losses to the Lions and Rams dampened the expectations a little bit, but nine-straight wins put the Vikings in contention for the NFC North and the first seed.
It all came down to a showdown against the Lions, who also were 13-3. The defense held as long as they could, forcing two turnovers in the game. However, Darnold missed plenty of opportunities, and the Vikings lost 31-9. Forced to play in the wildcard, the Vikings would face the Rams, O’Connell’s former team. Because of the fires in L.A., the game was moved to Arizona, where the Rams’ defense obliterated the Vikings’ offense, getting 9 sacks and two takeaways.
2025 – What now?
Chicago Bears
The Bears “won” the offseason once again, signing former Lions’ OC Ben Johnson to be their next head coach. The hope is that his creativity and explosive offense will help in Caleb Williams’ development. They revamped their offensive line, trading for Jonah Jackson and Joe Thuney and signing Drew Dalman in free agency.
The Bears are a hard team to predict, as we’ll have to see if Johnson will be as good of an HC as he was as an OC. There’s also the possibility that the 2024 staff gave Caleb Williams too many bad habits, which would be difficult to overcome. Although Keenan Allen is gone, Moore and Odunze are still there, and the Bears drafted WR Luther Burden in the second round. They may not be ready to fight for the division, but the Bears can be competitive.
Minnesota Vikings
The Vikings let Darnold walk away, signaling their belief in McCarthy’s ability. In the aftermath of the loss in the playoffs, O’Connell said the team would look to improve its interior offensive line. With one of the best OT duos in Christian Darrisaw, who missed half of the season with a knee injury, and Brian O’Neill, the team knew the problem was inside. They signed Ryan Kelly and Will Fries in free agency, both coming from the Colts. With just four picks in the Draft, many expected the Vikings to trade down, but they stayed at 24th and selected guard Donovan Jackson.
The defense was one of the best at pressuring opposing quarterbacks, but Flores needed help in the trenches. He had great options at EDGE and great blitzers, but no one could put pressure up the middle. With that in mind, the team also signed DTs Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave. With 1537 lbs added to the trenches, the Vikings hope to be a more balanced team in 2025.
We won’t know for sure who did a better job at rebuilding their team. The fact is that both Ryan Poles and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah did their jobs at a high level. They followed different paths, but the Bears and Vikings believe to be in a position to contend for at least three or four years.
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