Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan likes to remind anyone who will listen how he’s a student of the game.

Very few would argue that.

DeRozan doesn’t just monitor what his own organization does with personnel decisions, but he does so with the entire league.

He also knows what matters, and the Bulls’ 115-98 preseason victory Sunday against the host Raptors mattered.

After two preseason games against the Western Conference, DeRozan and the Bulls finally got their first chance to exchange blows with a team from the East. And not just any team in the conference, but one the Bulls could find themselves battling with for playoff position all season long.

It was the kind of matchup DeRozan had been looking forward to since camp began two weeks ago.

”You put me in a room with the best, it brings out the best in me,” DeRozan said recently. ”That’s the approach that we have to take this whole season. This is the toughest the East has been since I’ve been in the league. That makes it exciting.

”You want to compete at the highest level against the best. There are no nights off.”

It’s an attitude DeRozan would like to see his teammates take on with the regular season tipping off next week — and one that was absent too often last season.

Not unlike the Bulls, the success the Raptors had last season was a bit surprising. Both teams were battling for home-court advantage in the first round of the playoffs in the last month, and both finished on the outside looking in.

The Raptors finished as the fifth seed and the Bulls as the sixth in the East, and each was eliminated in the first round of the playoffs.

The Bulls’ expectations this season call for them being better than one-and-done, which means they have to take care of similar teams.

But the Raptors’ length and physicality gave the Bulls fits in the first half. Not only did they have a 10-point lead at the half, but they had forced the Bulls into 16 turnovers.

Bulls coach Billy Donovan made a small tweak to start the third quarter, putting Javonte Green on the court after giving the nod to Derrick Jones Jr. to start the game. Jones had been performing well throughout camp, and Donovan had said Friday that he wanted to reward him.

But with Green on the court, the momentum changed. The Bulls went on a 7-0 run to start the second half and grabbed the lead on a three-pointer by Zach LaVine with 7:33 left in the third.

The Bulls outscored the Raptors 30-23 in the third, then watched the reserves close out the game with a 38-18 fourth quarter.

DeRozan led the Bulls with 21 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, and Green added 17 points on 7-for-8 shooting.

What became apparent Sunday is that forward Patrick Williams’ demotion to the second unit might have staying power.

Donovan downplayed that scenario Friday, insisting a final decision on what role Williams would play was still undecided. But it was another shaky night for Williams, who shot 1-for-8 from the field against the Raptors.

NOTE: Veteran guard Goran Dragic was given the game off. Coach Billy Donovan earlier had said he wanted to keep the 36-year-old rested going into the regular season.

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Patrick Finley, Jason Lieser and Mark Potash break down the Bears’ wacky 29-22 loss to the Vikings and wonder whether this is the kind of development Justin Fields was waiting for.

New episodes of “Halas Intrigue” will be published regularly with accompanying stories collected on the podcast’s hub page. You can also listen to “Halas Intrigue” wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Luminary, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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MINNEAPOLIS — The Bears squandered a promising performance by quarterback Justin Fields and their defense broke at just the wrong time in their 29-22 loss to the Vikings on Sunday.

Beyond Fields and the Bears’ ill-fated final drive, here are three takeaways from the game:

Jefferson as advertised

The Bears were expected to have problems with Vikings star wide receiver Justin Jefferson, especially as top cornerback Jaylon Johnson was out with a quad injury, and they did. He broke 100 yards early in the second quarter and finished with 12 catches for 154 yards–the most by an opponent since the 49ers’ Deebo Samuel burned them for 171 last October.

Robinson shines again

Defensive end Dominique Robinson has already been worth the late-fifth-round pick the Bears used to draft him. He had a tackle for loss and blocked a 51-yard field goal in the third quarter.

Cousins catches fire

Teams don’t usually fear Kirk Cousins, but he had the Bears spinning from the start. He set a Vikings record by completing his first 17 passes of the game and finished 32 of 41 for 296 yards with a touchdown and interception for a 94.7 passer rating.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Like many of his teammates, linebacker Roquan Smith rued the bad start that put the Bears in a hole — three touchdowns on the Vikings’ first three drives.

But in the end, the Bears’ defense was where it wanted to be — on the field in the fourth quarter with momentum, a one-point lead to protect and a chance to put the hammer down. This isn’t a great defense, but second-half stops are what it does best.

“We had the game where we wanted,” Smith said.

But after having stopped the once-potent Vikings offense on four consecutive drives — a punt, a missed field goal, a blocked field goal and a Kindle Vildor interception — the Bears’ defense lost its touch.

With all sorts of opportunities to get a stranglehold — first-and-15, second-and-14, third-and-four, third-and-five and third-and-eight among them — the Bears came up empty. The once-invincible, suddenly fallible Kirk Cousins deftly and methodically engineered a 17-play, 75-yard, seven-minute touchdown drive, capped by Cousins’ one-yard sneak that gave the Vikings a 29-22 victory Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.

“What sticks out to me is they were just efficient,” defensive end Robert Quinn said. “They did what they had to do to win. No big plays, but being consistent. They did what they had to do. We didn’t. It is what it is.”

And unlike last week’s loss to the Giants, when Bears defenders lamented obvious errors that led to big gains for Daniel Jones and Saquon Barkley, there were no obvious culprits. Jones nickel-and-dimed a rejuvenated Bears defense until it just petered out in the end –with the Vikings’ interior line pushing the Bears’ defensive front backwards from on a third-and-goal from the one-and-a-half yard line to get Cousins into the end zone.

“We had the momentum on our side,” defensive end Trevis Gipson said. “We knew it was going to come down to the last couple of minutes in the fourth quarter — and really, we were built for that moment. We tried our best. It was just a matter of executing. It was a long drive. We were out there for a [lot] of plays. They converted. They did what they were supposed to do.”

After Vildor returned an interception of Cousins to the Bears 48 with 12:44 to go, Cairo Santos kicked a 51-yard field goal to give the Bears a 22-21 lead with 9:26 to play. The defense was plotting a winning scenario.

“Before Kindle got his pick, we were on the sideline saying, ‘We get one takeaway, we can take the lead. We get two, we can end the game,'” linebacker Nick Morrow said. “And we only got one.”

With plenty of time following Santos’ field goal, the Vikings were willing to take what the Bears’ defense gave them.

On first-and-15 from their 25 following a false start, Cousins threw a short pass to tight end Irv Smith for a 15-yard gain and a first down. On second-and-14 from the Vikings 42, cousins hit Justin Jefferson with a short pass for a 10-yard gain. On third-and-four from the Bears 48, Cousins threw another short pass to Smith for 13 yards.

And on third-and-five from the Bears 20 with 3:37 to play, Cousins escaped pressure from Quinn and scrambled up the middle for a five-yard gain.

“When you go against a veteran quarterback and you play a zone type of coverage, they know where to take the ball,” Morrow said. “So sometimes maybe’s just making a tackle here, getting the ball deflected. You just have to make a play and get off the field.”

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MINNEAPOLIS — Before Matt Eberflus tried the most daring move of his nascent head coaching career, he gathered the Bears’ defenders Sunday.

“I said, ‘Listen, we’re going for this,'” Eberflus said. “‘There is a chance we don’t get it. But listen, I want you to respond to this if we don’t get it.'”

The Bears had scored two touchdowns in the previous six-and-a-half minutes of game action –more than they had in the previous eight quarters –when their kickoff team ran on the field early in the third quarter.

Cairo Santos sprinted toward the ball and kicked a dribbler to his right toward the 50-yard stencil at U.S. Bank Stadium. Linebacker Matt Adams, the Bears’ special teams ace, dove for the ball 12 yards later–but Vikings cornerback Akayleb Evans pounced on the onside kick a split-second sooner.

Eberflus’ gambit to capitalize on a rare moment of Bears momentum didn’t work, and the Vikings won 29-22. But it showed, for the first time this season, that the first-time head coach will try to manage with cunning.

“It’s exciting for us, because we don’t see a doubt of concern about ‘What if we don’t get it?'” Santos said. “We see so much of the positive of what could come out of it.”

Eberflus has proven through five weeks that he’ll try to win at all costs — even when game plan doesn’t advance the learning curve of his young quarterback. The Bears were in a chase game early on Sunday, trailing 21-3 halfway through the second quarter, and Eberflus tried to find ways to steal an edge.

“I love it, personally …” quarterback Justin Fields said. “I think he believes in us. If we do get that onside kick, it gives us momentum. It shows, if we don’t get it, he trusts in the defense.”

The play that preceded the onside kick was a failed two-point conversion. Down 21-16, the Bears threw a dead-on-arrival screen to Dante Pettis. Eberflus called the decision to forego the PAT an analytical one predetermined by Bears research and analysis director Harrison Freid and staff based on the score and time remaining.

On the Bears’ drive after the failed onside kick, Eberflus went for it on fourth-and-4 at the Vikings’ 37. It surprised his bench; DeAndre Houston-Carson, the punt team upback, ran on the field and had to be hustled to the sideline. Fields scrambled for seven yards to convert, and the Bears eventually kicked a 43-yard field goal.

“The numbers, where we were for game, in that part of the field … green light all the way,” Eberflus said.

When the Bears are just beyond field-goal range, Eberflus communicates to play-caller Luke Getsy — typically before he calls a first-down play –whether they are in four-down territory. Early in the fourth quarter, they decided they weren’t. Down by two at the Vikings’ 33, running back David Montgomery was stuffed on third-and-3. The Bears kicked a 51-yard field goal to take a short-lived lead.

During the preseason, Eberflus would smile when presented with hypotheticals about his own aggressiveness, saying he planned to trust both analytics and his gut.

He joked in August that he’d go for “every fourth down.” When that sort of swashbuckling didn’t surface in Weeks 1-4, it was fair to wonder if Eberflus, who built his career on designing a defense that doesn’t take risks, had it in him.

“It depends on who you’re playing, depends on the other quarterback, the situation of the game,” Eberflus said. “So we want to be aggressive.

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said, ‘Green light! Go!,’ and [the situation] just hadn’t happened.”

When it did Sunday, the Bears couldn’t capitalize. Eberflus, though, took away one positive: his defense made sure he didn’t pay for the failed onside kick by blocking Greg Joseph’s field goal.

“Sudden change–you respond to it,” he said. “They all did.”

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MINNEAPOLIS –Rookie receiver Velus Jones touched the ball on offense for the first time of his career Sunday –and scored. On first-and-goal at the 9 on the first drive of the third quarter, Jones went in motion from left to right and caught a touch pass from Fields on a speed sweep. He went around the right edge and plowed into the end zone.

“It was just going over practice, visualizing me actually scoring a touchdown,” Jones said after the Bears’ 29-22 loss. “I believed when my number was called, I was gonna make it happen for the team. That’s what happened.”

That’s a different feeling than last week, when Jones muffed a punt with about two minutes to play that cost the Bears a chance to try to beat the Giants.

“I know who I am and I know the player I can be,” he said.

D-Mo back

Two weeks after suffering a grisly injury to his right knee and ankle, running back David Montgomery started Sunday. He caught four passes for a team-high 62 yards and ran 12 times for 20 yards. His best gain was a nine-yard touchdown at the end of the first half.

“If you love playing the game, you don’t ever want to sit out or be on the side,” he said. “I was trying my best to come back in the smartest way possible.”

The jersey he wore during warmups didn’t look very smart — the Bears spelled his last name “Montogomery,” with an extra “O.” It was fixed before kickoff.

This and that

o After missing last week’s game for personal reasons, Bears kicker Cairo Santos made field goals of 43, 50 and 51 yards.

” I was able to get back in the rhythm just like I did against Houston,” Santos said.

o Linebacker Matt Adams left the game with a calf injury.

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MINNEAPOLIS — Before the Bears took the field down 21-3 with 1:54 left in the first half Sunday, receiverDarnell Mooney pulled quarterback Justin Fields aside.

“I was telling Justin, ‘Hey, if you gotta use your feet to give us a spark or something like that, use it,'” Mooney said. “‘We need something. We have to get seven on this drive before we come out at halftime.'”

Turns out, Mooney was the spark. On the first play of the drive, from midfield, Fields launched a pass down the left sideline that Mooney caught in spectacular fashion. With Vikings cornerback Chandon Sullivan all over him, Mooney turned his back to the end zone, jumped, and reached up with his right hand. He grabbed the ball and pulled it into his body, falling to the ground for a 39-yard gain.

“We needed a spark,” Mooney, who had two catches for 52 yards, said after the 29-22 loss at U.S. Bank Stadium “It was pretty dry out there.”

The Bears scored a touchdown three plays later, the first of 19 unanswered points.

“I feel like, if It’s my vicinity, whether it’s two-handed or one-handed, I gotta catch the ball,” Mooney said.

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OK, I give up. Somebody explain to me what I just watched. Explain to me what I think I saw Sunday and what I wish I could unsee. Tell me if I saw a glimpse of the future, the good kind of future.

The Bears played one of the worst halves in the history of sports that use halves, and they lost a game they could – should? – have won if not for one knuckleheaded decision late in the fourth quarter. Does that make sense? No? Good. Now you’re beginning to understand the disorientation that came with a 29-22 loss to the Vikings.

On their first offensive play, the Bears were called for a delay of game when they only had 10 men on the field. English majors will recognize this as foreshadowing. What followed was a mess, a mess that would lead to a 21-3 hole.

Minnesota outgained the Bears 307 yards to 95 in the first half, with Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins completing his first 17 passes. It looked like he was playing catch with his dad in the backyard. The Bears’ defense seemed surprised that Justin Jefferson, a two-time second-team All-Pro, was a good receiver. Nobody saw much of a need to get up in his face off the line of scrimmage. He could have built a two-car garage in the space defensive backs regularly gave him.

There was one bright spot for the Bears in the second quarter, one very bright spot, but after the way the Vikings had dominated the action, no one in their right mind would have dared call it a game-changer in the moment. Bears receiver Darnell Mooney made a ridiculously athletic one-handed catch for a 39-yard gain, helping to set up a touchdown and cut the deficit to 21-10. To reiterate: There was nothing that came before that would have inspired confidence.

The Bears ended up scoring 19 unanswered points, including a touchdown on their first possession of the third quarter. A failed onside kick after that score was followed by a blocked field-goal attempt by the Bears’ special teams. And quarterback Justin Fields, after struggling in the first half – after struggling in the first four games – came alive.

This is where the team and coach Matt Eberflus deserve praise. They were lost, and they found themselves.

“We were down 21-3,” Fields said. “A lot of the teams in this league would have just laid down and stopped playing. But I’m just proud of our guys and the way they fought.”

They did. They really fought. And maybe the fog of war explains Ihmir Smith-Marsette’s bad decision in the waning moments of the game. Down 29-22, the Bears had every reason to think they could score on the Vikings again, grab a two-point conversion and sneak out of Minneapolis with a victory. But Smith-Marsette, after a 15-yard reception, inexplicably tried to get more yards rather than get out of bounds to stop the clock with about a minute left. Minnesota’s Cameron Dantzler pulled the ball out of Smith-Marsette’s hands and snatched a believe-it-or not victory from the Bears.

A game summed up: Ugliness followed by goodness followed by senselessness.

Fields finished 15 of 21 for 208 yards and a touchdown, with a passer rating of 118.8. It was the first time he threw for more than 200 yards this season. That’s not cause for a parade, just some hope.

He led the Bears with 47 rushing yards (on eight carries). He had a 52-yard touchdown run called back on a very flimsy penalty against Smith-Marsette for an illegal block. Column recap: Smith-Marsette had a very bad day. Whether the Bears’ offense is designed this way or not, it sure looks to be predicated on Fields’ ability to scramble. You’ll know he’s arrived when you can’t predict when he’s going to run the ball. Right now, you can. The good news is that defenders still can’t stop him when he decides to take off on third- or fourth-and-long.

Can an offense be designed around the threat of a quarterback scramble? Unless Fields’ accuracy as a passer improves, it might be the only way for him to succeed in the league.

“Justin had one of the best games of his career,” Eberflus said.

Exactly. Keep doing that, whatever it is. Scripted, unscripted … just go with it.

It’s hard to understand how the Bears could have come out so flat Sunday, especially against a team that played in London last week. A delay of game on the first offensive play? Teams rehearse their first 15 plays or so in the days leading up to a game, like a Broadway cast going over its lines. It was unforgivable.

But Eberflus told his players that, no matter how dark things might look, hope is built into the equation.

“In the NFL, it’s never going to be perfect, and it’s always going to come down to the end,” he said. “We learned that the last two weeks, and we have to make the plays to finish the game and seal the deal.”

Good teams do that. The Bears are far from that. But they were entertaining Sunday, for better and worse.

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