The Chicago Bears needed a complete effort to beat the Minnesota Vikings last Sunday. It was a playoff type of atmosphere. Two teams trying to keep their seasons alive. In the end, it was the Bears who put together the better performance. Yet it wasn’t just their established stars who made it happen. They got big contributions from a number of their younger guys.
David Montgomery continued his huge second-half breakout with 146 yards and two touchdowns. Second-year linemen Sam Mustipher and Alex Bars helped pave the way. Darnell Mooney added over 60 combined yards and a touchdown. Bilal Nichols had a sack. Head coach Matt Nagy though made sure to save some praise for one overlooked hero in that game.
Second-year cornerback Duke Shelley.
For those who don’t remember, he was the Bears’ 6th round pick out of Kansas State in 2019. At the time they cited his toughness and aggressive mentality as key traits they liked. Unfortunately, he hasn’t gotten many chances to show them. That changed when veteran slot corner Buster Skrine suffered a concussion in the loss to Detroit.
This forced the untested Shelley into the lineup. He’s certainly had his struggles. Quarterbacks have a 107.1 passer rating when targeting him in coverage. Nagy isn’t discouraged by that. He’s seen significant growth out of the 24-year old. Especially when it comes to making big plays in key moments.
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“What you do see out of those two young guys is they battle every play and they’re not scared to stick their nose in the briar patch and make some plays. I mean, Duke Shelley made two huge tackles that resulted in us getting the ball back because of the tackles that he made. Vildor, he’s sticky and he gets on you and he can make plays. And he’s going to grow.”
#DEFENSE!!! #DukeShelley! #DaBears Great stop!!!!
That’s how you make a play! pic.twitter.com/UZYxqvJS4J— The_Gains_Report (@Thegainsreport) December 20, 2020
Shelley is another Chicago Bears corner who can tackle
In two games now, he’s made 12 combined tackles include seven against the Vikings. As Nagy said, two of them have really stood out. The first came in the 2nd quarter. On 3rd and 8 from their own 27, Minnesota’s Kirk Cousins scrambled. It looked like he was going to get a first down until Shelley managed to bring him down a yard short of the sticks. The Vikings decided to go for it on 4th down. Chicago managed to smother Dalvin Cook for no gain. They ended up kicking a field goal, increasing their lead to 20-7.
The biggest play though came late in the 4th quarter. Chicago was now clinging to a 30-27 lead. Mitch Trubisky had just thrown a costly interception in the end zone. The Vikings had a chance to take the lead for the first time. On 2nd and 7, Cousins dumped a pass off to star running back Dalvin Cook in the open field. As the video above shows, Shelley was the only one in position to make a play. He managed to trip Cook up to stop him short of the first down.
This ended up being absolutely huge.
Cook was stopped for no gain on 3rd down and then a Cousins pass fell incomplete when the Vikings again went for it on 4th down. The Chicago Bears ran the ball three times, burned Minnesota’s remaining timeouts and Cairo Santos nailed a 42-yard field goal to make it 33-27. This meant the Vikings had to score a touchdown with 56 seconds left to win. Their last Hail Mary attempt fell short.
Thanks to Shelley, they’d missed out on two huge scoring opportunities that ended up handing the Bears those six critical points to win the game. What a job but the young cornerback.
