After last weekend's impressive 59-37 season-opening road win over the Panthers, the Bears return to Soldier Field for their home opener Sunday against the Vikings.
Coach Ben Johnson, quarterback Caleb Williams and the offense are spending the week preparing for a Minnesota defense that's coordinated by Brian Flores.
"You try to have answers for everything," Johnson said. "He's been in this division three years now and you'd like to think he's put everything he could possibly do on tape until you play him next and you realize he hasn't yet.
"So, it'll be something new. There always is with him and that's what makes him such a good coordinator. It's a great challenge. It really is. You have a lot of fun on game day. Now the week or preparation is not so much fun, but there's a lot of back and forth that goes into it."
Flores is known for his frequent blitzes; the Vikings led the NFL with a 46.0% blitz rate last season—almost 10% more than any other team—and blitzed on about 80% of drop-backs in last weekend's 39-22 win over the Packers. But that doesn't mean Minnesota will employ that strategy Sunday.
Asked whether he is trying to avoid overthinking what Flores might do, Johnson said: "There's a lot of that. End of day, our guys, I want them to go out and play fast. I want to make sure we're sound. It's not very different than what we talked about a week ago, making sure we have a hat for a hat as often as we can, and if he gets us on something, that's fine. Then we've got to come together and make sure we get it corrected and we'll move on from there.
"This game will end up being some adjustments going on over the course of it. I might be in the tablet a little bit more than I'd like to over the course of the game, but that's how these ones have tended to go in the past."
Facing Flores and the Vikings is also a unique challenge for Williams, who has thrown for 934 yards with four touchdowns, no interceptions and an 88.1 passer rating in four career starts against Minnesota.
"Coach calls this 'mental war' when you [play against] him, and that's what it is," Williams said. "Bad things are going to happen. You've got to be able to fight back and stay steady. That's one of the biggest things is not allowing his defense to fluster you and get in your mind. You stay steady, and now it's time to go make plays and get completions and when the big ones show up, take them and find them."
Williams realizes that Sunday's game could be won or lost before either team even takes the field.
"As a competitor, these weeks are super tough," Williams said. "Five or six days out of the week you're just spending as much [time] as you can trying to figure out anything to be able to give your team the advantage. That's the phase we're in right now. You're getting a little less sleep and all of that …
"They've got great players over there, but also that scheme is one of a kind, and so as a competitor, it does get you going a little bit early in the week, and so it's exciting. We've got a really big challenge ahead of us."
