It was a great week in the NFC North. The Lions got lucky, the Vikings regressed, and the Packers stomped the Bears. Let's get into it. 

Minnesota Vikings

The Vikings lost to the Baker Mayfield-led Tampa Bay Bucaneers 20-17. 

Games Notes

• Justin Jefferson picked up where he left off last season (in games where Jaire Alexander wasn't traveling with him, that is) and had 7 catches for 138 yards in the first half. He had just 2 catches for 12 yards in the second half. 
• Kirk Cousins put up a ton of stats, going 33/44 with 344 yards and 2 TDs but turned the ball over in the red zone and ultimately led an offense that had just 17 points. There were Cousins/Aaron Rodgers comparisons this off-season. It's one thing to put up stats in a wide-open offense, it's another to be a key factor on a winning team. 
• Alexander Mattison got off to a rough start in his first game as full-time starter, averaging just 3.1 yards per carry with a long of 9. 
• On defense, the Vikings did what we thought they would, and brought heat. The team blitzed on over 47% of plays, the most in the league this week. Interestingly, Tampa brought the second most pressure, at 46% of dropbacks.
• The Vikings' first and second-round picks in 2022, Lewis Cine and Andrew Booth, played only on special teams in the game. 

Former Packers

• Dean Lowry had 4 tackles.

Next Week

The Vikings will likely get the business from the Eagles on Thursday night. 

Chicago Bears

The Bears were sent into the upside down by the Packers, 38-20. 

Game Notes

• Bears fans spent the offseason talking smack, comparing Fields to Mahomes and calling Jordan Love a check-down charlie. They're all summarily deleting their tweets today. Fields wasn't awful but he was definitely bad. He threw for just 216 yards on 37 attempts and had an interception plus a few more throws that could've become picks. 
• Fields, unsurprisingly, played well in the run game, getting 59 yards on 9 carries. He was the only Bear to average more than 4 YPC. Take away the long runs from Roschon Johnson, D'Onta Foreman, and Khalil Herbert, and their cumulative yards per carry was just 1.8 yards. Obviously, you have to judge the defense based on long runs as well as bad runs, but the point is that throughout the game the Packers' stopped the Bears from getting any momentum on the ground. 
• Defensively, the Bears sacked Love just once. Their best player was probably former Badger TJ Edwards (who was cooked by Aaron Jones several times) or free-agent edge rusher Yannick Ngakoue (who had a few unblocked flash plays and was held silent by Bakhtiari otherwise).  
• It was not a great week one look for Bears' fans and many are considering dropping football as a hobby altogether. I hope they at least learn to stay off Twitter. 

Former Packers

• The Bears have a pair of former Badgers linebackers, and both played relatively well except in coverage. TJ Edwards had 14 tackles and Jack Sanborn had 3 on 19 snaps.
• Big Bob Tonyan didn't have an offensive stat, but he had a tackle on special teams. 

Next Week

The Bears travel to Tampa Bay. 

Detroit Lions

The Lions squeaked by the Chiefs, 21-20. 

Game Notes

• I know Lions fans will be mad, so let's get this out fo the way. The Lions won thanks to a pick-six that literally hit Kadarius Toney in the hands. In the game, Toney had 4 drops, and the Chiefs were without Travis Kelce, who is probably the best tight end of all time. That doesn't mean the Lions played a bad game though. 
• Jared Goff had an OK day, completing 22/35 passes for 235 yards and a TD. He didn't look great, he looked like Jared Goff. 
• The Sun God had the touchdown and 6 of the receptions and Josh Reynolds added 80 yards receiving. 
• The story of the game, offensively, was how well Jahmyr Gibbs played on limited snaps. He had 6 broken tackles on 7 carries and averaged 6 YPC and 9 YPR. He looked the part of a plus NFL RB but the team kept him off the field for much of the game. Campbell says it was because it was his first game, we'll see what happens with his snaps going forward. 
• On defense, Aidan Hutchinson broke out. He had the second most pressures in the league with 7 and changed what the Chiefs could do on offense the entire night. He looks like he will be a terror for a decade in Detroit. 

Former Packers

• The Lions, sadly, don't have any players with Wisconsin ties as far as I can tell.