Heading into the third week of preseason action, where recent tradition shows that most teams will get their starters the most exhibition action, the teams around the NFC North are looking to build consistency as they look to head into the regular season just less than three weeks away.

Chicago Bears

This Saturday, the Bears welcome the Kansas City Chiefs to Soldier Field their fourth game of the preseason.  Coming off of a 24 – 23 come from behind win in Denver this past weekend, the Bears will be looking to get starting quarterback Mitch Trubisky into a rhythm with his new group of receivers prior to the team making the trek to Lambeau Field for the regular season opener.

In Denver, Trubisky and the Bears starting offense ran hot and cold.  Trubisky showed signs of having an accurate arm while hitting several receivers on nice throws downfield.  But in the same breath, he also struggled at times with unexplained inaccuracy.  A heavy dose of the starting offense on Saturday is needed for the Bears offense and Trubisky to mesh together.

So far in the preseason, new head coach Matt Nagy’s offense has been featuring frequent motion and pre-snap shifting with jet sweeps and end arounds mixed in with the downfield passing attack and zone running scheme.  In Denver, Trubisky found a groove with new tight end Trey Burton for four receptions for 45 yards and a touchdown.  The two-headed combination of Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen has been limited this preseason, but Nagy has shown signs of utilizing the versatile running backs in a variety of ways throughout mini-camp and training camp practices.

On defense, the big story for the Bears this Saturday will be their first-round draft pick, Roquan Smith, seeing his first live action after signing his rookie contract last week.

Minnesota Vikings

Coming off of an ugly 14 – 10 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars at home last weekend, the Viking will look to right their ship at home this Friday against the Seattle Seahawks.  The Jaguars game was a struggle for Kirk Cousins, who saw action in four total series.  He finished the day only completing three passes on eight attempts for a grand total of 12 yards.  The starting quarterback could only muster a field goal for the offense in his time on the field.

Following the Jacksonville game, head coach Mike Zimmer was not happy with the sloppy play of his team and was quoted saying that he was glad his team didn’t win because they didn’t deserve to win.  The usually reliable Latavius Murray coughed up two fumbles in only six carries, with the Vikings losing one of those fumbles.

On the other side of the ball, the Vikings defense looked solid against a Jaguars team that played their starting offense for the entire first half of the game.  The unit held the Jaguars offense relatively still and savvy veteran Harrison Smith recorded an interception of Black Bortles.

In a rare regular season preview matchup in the preseason, the Vikings will be looking to get new quarterback Kirk Cousins into a groove when the Seahawks come to town on Friday.  The two teams face each other on a Monday night matchup on December 10^th.

Detroit Lions

Coming off of a 30 – 17 loss to the New York Giants at home last weekend, the Detroit Lions appear to have a lot of work to accomplish to be ready for their week one matchup against the New York Jets.  Having played two games of sloppy and mistake-ridden football so far this preseason, head coach Matt Patricia was not pleased after the team’s performance against the Giants.

Matt Stafford led the first-team offense on three drives where they scored three points on a field goal and went three and out on the other two drives.  The biggest pain for the Lions offense so far through the preseason has been the sketchy play of their offensive line, who allowed Stafford to be sacked twice on his three drives.  With TJ Lang resting, the Lions have struggled to find a groove on their offensive line and the coaching staff knows that this facet of their game needs to improve over the final two preseason games.

On the defensive side of the ball, the Lions pass defense, led by cornerback Darius Slay, has played decently but the rushing defense has been suspect at best.  As the team travels to Tampa Bay this Friday for a matchup with the Buccaneers, the team surely needs to show signs of improvement all around prior to the start of the regular season.