1st & North: Week 5 recap, Week 6 ahead

Hey everyone, welcome into First and North after a wild week five in the NFL. They say any given Sunday for a reason. I'm Cassie Carlson and joining me this week on the show, we have Jennifer Hammond from Fox Detroit, Tim Van Buren from Fox Milwaukee, and Pierre Nugent from Fox Minneapolis. And Tim, the Packers straight up punched the Bears in the mouth Sunday at Lambeau Field, 31-7 win. Credit to the Packers who outplayed, outcoached Chicago, and clearly exposed a major weakness. The Bears' corners, explosive plays, killed the Bears, and Jordan Love capitalized a career-high passer rating. That was a gut punch to Chicago. You and I talked a few times last week, and for me, I think for you, this is pretty high on the didn't-see-that-one coming scale. My goodness. People were talking about it being a runaway the other way, and the Packers gallop out of there, really putting it to the Bears and showing no mercy in the case. They missed a couple of field goals that could have been worse. They could have gone for it on a couple of fourth downs. It was complete domination by the Green Bay Packers, which begs two questions. Did the Bears show up, and where in the world was that for the first month of the season for Green Bay? Yeah, and that wide receiver duo of Christian Watson and Matthew Golden, I think it surprised everyone. They have now more combined yards than any other wide receiver duo in the league through the first five games. And we all know that Ben Johnson really ignited this rivalry a year ago. The Bears went into this game as favorites in Green Bay for the first time since 2006. And granted, they have to start a backup quarterback. And Tyson Bagent, who everyone thought was maybe one of the top 32 quarterbacks in the league, clearly isn't. A 27.4 passer rating, he threw two interceptions. He eventually got benched for Case Keenum, who described this as a good old beatdown by the Packers. If you last long enough, it's just a matter of time. At some point, you're going to get your a** kicked. And it's not about that. It's about how you respond. Things we take a lot of pride in on offense are how we go about our business from a fundamentals technique and finish standpoint. And, you know, those things aren't consistent at the level with which we would like them to be right now. I look at it all. Is it is it is it us or is it them? And a lot of it is is us, you know, just making mistakes and, you know, not being in certain places or turning the ball over. You know, when you turn the ball over five times in a game, it's it's pretty impossible to win the game. But, you know, like I said before, it's nothing we can't fix and nothing we won't fix. We're just getting started. And the cool thing is we'll be able to see them again. Yeah, five turnovers in the game. The secondary being exposed by explosive plays. The Bears' run game couldn't get established against one of the worst run defenses in the league. The Bears dropped to last place in the division. They're 2-6 against the NFC North under Ben Johnson, and the numbers are alarming. He's 12-2 against the rest of the NFL. If you look at the points per game disparity, 16.6 against the North. 30-and-a-half against the rest of the NFL. Third down percentage in the 30s against the division, 47% against the rest of the NFL. I mean, this is the reality of being in one of the toughest divisions in football. You have to be able to dominate against your opponents. And, yes, they won the division last year, but Ryan Poles said when he was hired here in Chicago that they wanted to take the North and give it back. You have to be able to find ways to get these wins. And that was definitely the worst game in Ben Johnson's career here in Chicago. I know people were saying that the one last year where he returned to Detroit was up there, too. But you had so much momentum going into this game. There was a lot riding on it. The fact that Mike Ditka had died a couple of days later and you thought that this would be the best way to go honor the coaches, go into Lambeau Field and dominate in a rivalry when the Packers were down. But the Packers are the one that played desperate. And clearly the players were leaning into some of the things that they heard from the Bears locker room, although I thought it was a little bit tempered down than it was a year ago. So here's what Zaire Franklin had to say about some of the things the Bears said leading into the game. Well, they do a whole lot of weird stuff. Like, since I've been here, like, they do a whole lot of stuff that worried about us. You know, we worried about ourselves. So, you know, hopefully they learn to stop dissing us real talk. Yeah, for sure. How do you think that played out then? I mean, what was the score, 31-7? You tell me. It definitely, you know, felt a little extra. I mean, I definitely tried to, you know, not, you know, think about, you know, last year or you know those kind of results i mean they got new pieces there they're you know a new team we're a new team um you know a new year but i mean it definitely uh when you look back it definitely has a little it's a little sweeter and Tim it felt like Matt LaFleur was definitely trying to run up the score on the Bears in this one we know that there is the cordial handshake where they actually locked eyes after the game they won't meet again until Christmas Day i'll let you have the last word about this week five matchup oh we lost your Mike, again, Tim, every time we ask you about the Packers and the Bears, we don't want to hear it in Chicago, so maybe we cut it off. That could be strategic by us. The ghost of Ditka. Mute. Pierre, let's head to Minnesota where the Vikings are one of the three remaining undefeated teams after a 23-13 win over the Saints. Yeah, really a really good showcasing for the Minnesota Vikings. I know a lot of people might look at that final box score, look at the final score altogether and think to yourself, well, the Vikings offense didn't really do much. They only scored 23. But you also have to remember that the Vikings fumbled the ball not once but twice in the red zone. You asked me the question last week, Cassie, what would I like to see better from this Vikings offense? And I said it, be better in the red zone. Even though they weren't all that much better in the red zone, throwing the ball or fumbling the ball away two times, they were a lot better on offense. A week or two ago, Kevin O'Connell was talking about how he believed that this offense was on the ascension. And I thought to myself after I heard it, I said, I'm not sure if I'm buying that. But after Sunday's performance in New Orleans, I think I'm starting to see it kind of come around. And you also have to remember that the Vikings were playing without Jordan Addison. TJ Hawkinson got hurt on the second play of the game, had a concussion, did not return. And they were also playing without their starting left guard in Donovan Jackson and their starting left tackle in Christian Darrisaw. But despite all of that, Kyler Murray completed 80% of his passes, threw a touchdown, ran the ball very effectively. Kyler Murray has improved in each of the past three games for Minnesota. And you can see he's starting to get a little more comfortable in this offense. And if that continues, this Vikings team may very well be for real. Let's listen in on what the players had to say after getting their win down in New Orleans. I grew up a couple minutes down the street, and all of the hard work that I put in and all of the sacrifices that I made to put in the work and get to where I'm at today is definitely playing off. But just to see all of the familiar faces around the stadium, all of my friends and family here to support me, it was great. To get a touchdown, to celebrate, and to get a victory here, I can ask for no better. Again, I feel like offensively we're ascending, and I know defensively they've been doing their thing. But I'm excited where we're going after getting back, getting off this bye, get healthy, got a couple guys coming back. I feel like the sky's the limit for us offensively, as long as we don't shoot ourselves in the foot and keep K.O. on track. All right, so you can say that the offense is improving week after week, but I think if the Vikings are going to be one of the contenders in this league towards the end of the season, it's going to be because of their defense. And Brian Flores' unit remains dominant, especially in the fourth quarter. Ranks first with three points allowed, 3.6 yards per play, 12 rush yards, and have yet to give up a touchdown in the fourth quarter in the red zone. How dominant is it? And when you watch it, it's like every week he's throwing the same thing at these teams that just can't figure it out. It's pretty remarkable, Cassidy, especially when you consider the blitz rate. I think in the first half of that game against New Orleans, Their blitz rate was at or above 90%, which is absolutely astonishing. But this defense continues to get the job done. Tyler Shuck had his worst game of the season, held under 100 yards passing on the afternoon, just 16 completions. And this Saints offense only held the ball for 20 minutes in the game. I'm running out of adjectives as to how to describe this defense right now. Nobody seems to be able to figure out a solution against Brian Flores and this vaunted front. And you have to remember, they're playing a couple of young guys on that defensive line in the rookies, Dominique Orange and Caleb Banks, and they're still finding a way to be disruptive at the line of scrimmage. I'm not sure what else I could possibly add at this point. This defense is playing spectacular football right now. All right, Jennifer, let's talk about the Lions. They go into Arizona and get a dominating 45-21 win over the Cardinals. Felt like it could be a turning point for this team. Let's listen in on what they had to say after. All right, that's the one answer back, man. don't ever accept don't ever accept less than what you are capable of as a human being as a player and as a team ever and some of you when you become husbands some of you aren't fathers don't accept less than that either ever ever ever man you keep your standards where they belong you don't accept ******* mediocrity that's not what this league is people that do that's what happens you ride the wave all right that's the way to answer back we had a good week of practice we stressed each other we came out here and we handled our business and it wasn't perfect we got so much room to grow football and life advice from dan campbell in the locker room after the game i was reading that after falling to the panthers on sunday night football dan campbell challenged everyone heading into arizona i guess calling players out at practice what do you think that ignited inside that locker room well it ignited that kind of performance obviously i mean i'll tell you something cassie all week long there were questions about not only the defensive coordinator but the defensive scheme the personnel and even dan campbell stepped up to the podium on monday and started to question his offense because they hadn't been quite pulling their weight and being as dominant as they were supposed to be he made practice uncomfortable by all accounts this week for his players for his team and in turn they flipped the switch and made it uncomfortable on arizona and granted jacoby brissett and the cardinals haven't been blowing the doors off of anybody that was their fourth straight loss but the most important thing is they went in there and they exerted themselves and they got back to what they are and that is a strong team both on both lines of scrimmage they ran the ball with authority and very well jameer gibbs had uh two touchdowns he ran for 151 yards on 25 carries he also added five catches for 56 yards jared goff passed for a couple of more scores they even got jamo and it got the great spike there jg told me that he didn't think that he spiked it that hard but when he went back and looked at it on film but it was pretty darn good he was impressed and on that touchdown there that you just saw gibbs rush in he passed barry sanders for the most touchdowns in nfl history for a player under the age of 25 years old with 58 so this was a get right game for the detroit lions and they did it scoring 24 points in the second quarter alone the most for any Lions team in a quarter since 2013 yeah and seven straight scoring drives the longest streak in the NFL this year you had Drew Petzing returning to his former team Lions win and you look at the score 45 points having the top offense in the league how far can that offense carry this team with so many questions on defense well I think that it will carry them a lot further once they get Cade McNamara back and I know we'll talk about that a little bit later but this is an offense that's still trying to find itself you know what they're healthy right now they've got a full complement of their tight ends Jared Goff is cooking he's got 12 touchdowns no interceptions he's completing 67 percent of his passes and if you can believe it he was actually better last year through five games so the offense is really just starting to find itself and they want more and they know they're going to need more coming up against both of the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings when they come back after the bye week but this is really a great way to go into the bye with Jared Goff the team ranks second in passing yards tied for second in touchdowns first with no interceptions and Jared Goff's passer rating is at 111 and he has just been sensational and of course there's still room for more growth because they've still struggled with some of those slow starts they went three and out on the first three drives and it wasn't until a fourth and three conversion on their fourth drive that they actually found their way, found their groove. Going for it on fourth down and converting can really spark an offense or it could not. We need to take a timeout. Will Caleb Williams and Micah Parsons return this week? We discuss when we return on First and Fourth.