The Week 15 edition of Monday Night Football features two teams who are looking to finish the season strong for different reasons. The Minnesota Vikings will take on the Chicago Bears in an NFC North battle. The game will kick off at 8:15 p.m. ET on ESPN. The Peyton and Eli Manning broadcast will not air on ESPN 2 this week as the duo is off. Vikings vs. Bears will also stream on ESPN.com, the ESPN App, NFL App and Yahoo Sports App.
Minnesota (6-7) is in playoff mode. With four games remaining, the Vikings likely need to win out to make the playoffs for the first time since 2019. If the Vikings miss the postseason, its’ possible head coach Mike Zimmer could be let go since he’s been with the team since 2014 and has never led the Vikings to the playoffs in consecutive seasons.
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“It’s all on us at the end of the day. We shouldn’t have ourselves in this situation,” Vikings wide receiver Justin Jefferson said, per the team’s official website. “All those close games we lost that we should’ve won, so all those things, we should not be in this position. All we can do is go out there and win those games we have left.”
At this point of the season, the Bears (4-9) are looking to finish the 2021 season strong and build for 2022. The Bears may look for a new head coach and general manager once this season ends, but the QB position is set with Justin Fields. In 11 games with nine starts, Fields has completed 57% of his passes while throwing for 1,585 yards, six touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He has also rushed for 385 yards and two scores. While Fields is not posting eye-popping numbers, he knows what needs to happen to be an elite player.
“That’s one of the hardest things,” Fields said per ESPN, “[that] when you are losing, there are so many people saying this and that. But you have to look at positives and just build on that and just know this isn’t going to change overnight. You have to keep building. It’s going to be hard, but you just have to find the positive.”
