3 key stats behind the Bears’ heart-stopping win over the Vikings

Winning ugly counts, too.

For many Bears fans, the most important number following the Bears’ 19-17 victory over the Minnesota Vikings is 7: the number of wins the now-division-leading Chicago squad has in 2025. And to be clear, that’s a major milestone. The Bears haven’t won more than eight games in a season since 2020—the last time they made the playoffs—and it seems as if they should easily top eight wins at this point.

But the story of this latest win can be told by other numbers, too.

Here are a few big stats to reflect on from yesterday’s stressful yet satisfying win.

36:59

The Bears’ time of possession against Minnesota. Outside of the Vikings’ two big scoring drives in the fourth quarter, Chicago owned the ball in this game. Give the rushing attack all the credit for that one. The Bears won the time of possession battle in Week 1 as well, but they added to their TOP by about four minutes this time, thanks to a second-quarter touchdown drive that took almost eight-and-a-half minutes and owning the ball almost the entire third quarter. Of course, the Vikings were able to strike fast on their two touchdown drives to negate the Bears’ lead. But Chicago has proven that leaving any time on the clock for them at the end of the game is a mistake, and the special teams and offense made those last 50 seconds count. To put this more into perspective: while both teams had 12 drives in the game, Chicago ran 73 plays to Minnesota’s 54.

13

The number of rushing first downs for the Bears. Both Caleb Williams and JJ McCarthy completed 16 of 32 passes on the day, so neither quarterback lit the world on fire. The difference was in the rushing attacks, where the Bears outgained the Vikings 140 to 115, and how they were used. Minnesota achieved just four rushing first downs, relying on McCarthy’s arm to try and move the chains, which didn’t work until the end of the game. Meanwhile, Chicago kept the clock moving and kept churning out long possessions that put the pressure on the Vikings even when they weren’t converting those drives into touchdowns. Between D’Andre Swift’s (90 yards) and Kyle Monangai’s (23 yards, TD) and Williams’ timely scrambles, the Bears have a way of grinding teams down.

2

How about a double-feature?

First: the number of turnovers forced by the Bears. The Bears needed every one of them, too. The encouraging thing is that Grady Jarrett, who has struggled tremendously for most of the year, got the pressure that caused the first pick of JJ McCarthy by Kevin Byard. Nahsohn Wright, who has had up-and-down moments, got the other. The flip side of that coin: the Bears didn’t turn the ball over at all, forcing the Vikings to create their own points. The Bears aren’t dominating teams, which certainly frustrates fans. But they’re a good enough team to take advantage of bad football and turn it into points.

Also…

The number of times Caleb Williams was sacked despite being blitzed on 78% of his dropbacks. We’ve already highlighted how incredible Williams’s escapability in the pocket is, and this week will only enhance his reputation as Houdini. Because honestly, how did he get out of some of those potential sacks? Why does this matter? Because only getting sacked twice for 13 yards in the face of that insane pressure kept the Bears from horrible down-and-distance situations and allowed them to keep enough drives going to scratch out the 19 points they needed to win.

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