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As soon as the Chicago Bears left Soldier Field late Sunday night, they forgot about the 25-20 victory over the Minnesota Vikings. There is no time to dwell upon it, or time to do much of anything else beyond getting ready for the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day.
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"It was fun, it was a great win, proud of the guys," Bears head coach Matt Nagy said Monday. "Heck of a team we played against; great coaches, great players. But just like that it's on to the next one."
The short turnaround to playing in a 12:30 p.m. ET kickoff after a flexed Sunday night game created the situation of three games in 12 days. Nagy didn't even look at the game film of the win over the Vikings and wasn't going to have time to go over it with players.
"I've been a part of these before where you have these short weeks," Nagy said. "You don't have enough hours in the day. You're here early in the morning and that's in the past. After the Detroit game, we'll have a little mini-bye, so that's where you catch up on it."
The greatest challenge facing the Bears is just physically recovering from a game, especially one against a team as physical as Minnesota.
"That's the No. 1 thing is to make sure these guys are taken care of, see where they're at physically and then mentally they'll be good," Nagy said. "But really just send home the message of 'here we go.' It's right back at it."
Fortunately for both the Bears and Lions, they played each other just last week so the mental preparation might not be as difficult. In that game, the Bears got out to a big early lead with their pass-catching duo Allen Robinson and Anthony Miller paving the way. It might not be as simple or easy playing in Detroit, especially after the Lions beat Carolina 20-19 Sunday at home.
Overthinking it might be a problem.
"This one here, when you just played somebody a couple of weeks ago, there's that fine line between chasing the cat's tail as to what you think they're going to do or what you saw, or they think you're going to do this so you do this and that," Nagy said. "Just for us, let's just control what we can control.
"We have a game plan. We already talked about what we're going to do for these two out of three weeks against Detroit, so we'll put it to the test, and it will come quick."
An advantage the Lions do have is many players have been through this short holiday week in the past. But Nagy doubted it gives them much of an edge.
"It depends, because that's a new [coaching] staff, right?" he said. "And there's some new players on there so I think it changes every year.
"For us, it's going to be new for us. We haven't been through this before. I don't think there's many coaches or players that have ever been through a Sunday night game to a day game on Thursday. But that's what it is. We'll just handle what we can handle, prepare as we prepare. They're on a short week, too. To me, there's no advantage or disadvantage either way."
Players emerged from their first win over a team with a winning record seeing more evidence they have arrived as 7-3 NFC North leaders.
"It shows that we can battle with the best of them," running back Tarik Cohen said. "It shows that we are still getting better and that we haven't reached our ceiling yet. Only we can decide what our ceiling is."
NOTES:
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TE Adam Shaheen suffered a concussion and his status for Thursday is uncertain.
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RB Tarik Cohen has become the second player in NFL history to gain 500-plus yards by rushing, receiving and returning punts and kickoffs in his first 25 games. Mack Herron of the Patriots (1973-74) was the first.
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S Eddie Jackson leads the NFL with four defensive touchdowns over the last two seasons. He already led before his 27-yard interception return for a touchdown against the Vikings. No one else has had more than two in the past two seasons. Jackson is the first player since at least 1930 to have a fumble recovery for a TD and an interception return for a TD in consecutive seasons.
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LB Aaron Lynch suffered a concussion and his status for Thursday is uncertain.
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WR Kevin White was a healthy scratch again Sunday, the third straight game the Bears' top pick in the 2016 NFL Draft has been inactive. "Kevin has been outstanding as far as where he's at mentally and how he's handled this situation -- I mean that," Nagy said. "Two weeks ago, when we decided to make the move to deactivate him, we had a good long sit-down talk and that's just what I believe in. We were very honest with each other. We talked. He understands. He knows what I'm looking for. I know where he's coming from. And you work through it. To Kevin's credit, he's been awesome."
