The Bears Aren’t the Vikings’ Only Enemy on Monday
After nearly eight months of waiting, Skol Nation will see its team in action on Monday, when the Minnesota Vikings open the 2025 campaign in Chicago. Matchups in Soldier Field are always tricky for the Vikings, and the upcoming matchup might not be any different.
The Bears Aren’t the Vikings’ Only Enemy on Monday
The grass at Chicago’s home is notoriously bad. Players have complained about that for decades, and it’s wise to enter the game with the expectation that there will be an occasional slip.
On Monday, an additional element will be introduced that could further diminish the grip.
Joe Nelson, SI.com, reported this week, “Soldier Field, the aging home of the Bears, played host to five consecutive concerts over Labor Day weekend, culminating with System of a Down and Avenged Sevenfold performing both Sunday and Monday. The Lumineers were the main event Saturday, while My Chemical Romance headlined Friday and Oasis performed in front of 52,000 fans Thursday.”
Over those five concerts, more than 250,000 visitors were present.
Chicago’s WGN9’s Courtney Spinelli added, “Once everything wraps, Soldier Field’s transformation begins as crews begin laying sod and preparing for the Bears to commence the 2025 season, which happens at home against the Vikings on September 8.”
In recent history, that didn’t help much. Nelson explained, “How will field conditions be come Monday night? Last year, before the Bears’ preseason opener against the Bengals, which came the week after Soldier Field hosted back-to-back Metallica concerts, the field conditions weren’t great.”
If you now think Vikings players are looking for excuses, it’s only fair to quote departed Bears guard Teven Jenkins, who didn’t enjoy those poor conditions last year: “I didn’t like it at all, really. It was a little slippery in some parts, and then some parts were sticky.”
The problem was that the sod was laid too late and needs more time to have the right grip. It was about a week before that game, too.
After mentioning that Bears kicker Cairo Santos described the grass as “a little lose,” but added that it was fine a few weeks later, Nelson added, “In other words, Santo thought the fresh sod needed some time to reach ideal playing surface status. If that’s true, then the Vikings would be wise to prepare for some less than perfect field conditions Monday night by wearing 7-stud cleats.”
The Vikings have won five straight at Soldier Field. The last defeat came in 2019, when the Vikes dropped the game 16-6. However, some of those games were quite ugly, and the Vikings would like to avoid any early-season hiccups, chasing a 14-3 record from last year.
Kevin O’Connell was asked about the field conditions, and he kept it professional:
“This is professional football so our anticipation is the surface is going to be good enough to play on. But I would say this, at some point, the guys in purple and white aren’t going to be the only ones playing on the surface so we’ve gotta do our best to establish, through a lot of different people, once we’ve arrived, once we’ve had a chance to step foot, gotta have our players prepared to play on whatever the surface is.”
Green Bay’s Lambeau Field often offers poor field conditions. Some might remember a late-year bout in the 2022 season, when the Vikings struggled with their footing. It was a blowout loss, and the lack of grip was just one item that showed how unprepared the team was that day.
Let’s hope Monday’s results look different with J.J. McCarthy captaining the offense for the first time in his career.