Bears

A season after their last-second loss in Washington, the Bears overcame a 13-point deficit to beat the Commanders in Week 6. Chicago QB Caleb Williams explained the importance of that win in his hometown in a place with horrible memories from just a year ago. 

“It felt great,” Williams said, via Grant Gordon of NFL.com. “Back in the hometown, obviously. Being able to come out with a win like that is big for us. Big for us as a team, big for us as an offense, special teams, just overall big for us. That’s a hell of a team over there. So being able to come out victorious in a dogfight where things weren’t perfect, weather wasn’t perfect, being able to come out victorious is big for us. So, feel great.”

“I don’t think any of those memories necessarily go away, good or bad. You move on from it, but it doesn’t ever necessarily fully go away. Being able to have this good moment is great, but we’ve got a big game coming up this week, so we’ve got to move on again.”

Packers

The Packers are the only team in the NFL to have held double-digit leads in each week this season, but late-game defensive struggles have impacted results. Green Bay HC Matt LaFleur said he’s spoken to DC Jeff Hafley about why it’s happening.

“That’s something Haf and I were kind of like just nitpicking, like why is it happening?” LaFleur said, via Rob Demovsky of ESPN. “Because if you look at the scoring differential, I just looked at it, I think in the first quarter throughout the course of the season, we’ve scored 24 points and the opposition scored zero. And then it’s the same, I mean, there’s a big discrepancy in the second quarter as well, but the second half I think we’re minus-6 on the season.”

LaFleur questions whether they are “running out of gas” late in games. 

“We’re just like, ‘Why is that happening?’” LaFleur said. “Are we running out of gas? Obviously, they got the ball to start the second half, they go on that 18-play drive or whatever it was, ate up damn near 10 minutes on the clock or whatever it was. I don’t know, does that gas you out? Does that make you more tired? Do we need to roll more guys in the first half? The hard part, the first half was a bunch of three-and-outs, so guys feel fresh and then you put them in there. So there’s things we talked about in regards to, are we well-conditioned enough from practice? Did our guys do enough on the bye week? All that stuff has kind of been floated around, trying to figure out why this is happening, because certainly we’re trying to find solutions.”

Packers CB Nate Hobbs thinks they need to stay disciplined no matter the circumstances. 

“It’s about discipline man,” Hobbs said. “It’s about not giving a f— how many plays you’re out there. Not giving a f— about none of that, bro. It’s lining up and doing the same thing you did last play and not getting bored, not letting fatigue take over. It’s just depending on each other and trusting each other.”

• LaFleur said Bo Melton has done well with his conversion from receiver to cornerback and feels it’s a “matter of time” before he gets snaps: “Bo does everything the right way. He’s a guy who’s played a lot of snaps. Making that switch over, he’s growing as a corner and I think it’s just a matter of time before he gets in there.” (Wes Hodkiewicz)

Vikings

Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy said that his high right ankle sprain is “getting there” but is not fully healed, adding that he received “well-respected second opinions” that his return could take up to six weeks.

“It’s really annoying,” McCarthy said, via Kevin Seifert of ESPN. “But we’ve got to be smart here, and understand there’s a lot of things that go into play, and at the end of the day, I’m just going to do what I’m told and try to get better as fast as possible.”

“I think the big thing is just getting him back on the grass in uniform, practicing, getting real live reps of a pass rush, and taking drops and applying some of the things that he’s worked really hard on as of late as he’s kind of gotten to that phase of his rehab,” O’Connell replied. “Then when he does that, instant dialogue about what he’s able to do and what it felt like and, ‘Hey, let’s log that away.’ And then if he doesn’t do the same thing, it’s going to be [the same]. I’m having a blast coaching him. It started last week when he was able to really start ramping up a little bit as he gets there and that one-on-one work and then obviously the work he does with [assistant coaches] is going to be critical.”

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