The Vikings had thrown an incomplete pass in Week 1 when Bears safety Jaquan Brisker, who was positioned deep to help cover Justin Jefferson, talking trash to the star receiver.
Jefferson, who was wearing a microphone, laughed about being taunted by someone who wasn’t even in charge of guarding him.
“I love when they talk (trash) to me, double teaming me,” he told his teammates on the sideline.
The Bears better be careful about poking the bear, particularly this week. The Ravens just held Jefferson to one of the worst games of his career — he had four catches on 12 targets for 37 yards in Sunday’s loss. It marked his lowest receiving yard total since he had two catches for 27 yards at Soldier Field last year.
The receiver is one of the all-time Bears killers — his average showing in nine career games against the Bears is six catches on nine targets for 81 yards. He has four touchdowns.
Since 2015, only Davante Adams has posted more career receiving yards against the Bears than Jefferson, who has 729 since joining the league in 2020.
“One of the best receivers in the game,” cornerback C.J. Gardner-Johnson said. “We gotta get out there and play our game and play a team game and try to stop him.”
In the season-opener, Jefferson finished with just four catches for 44 yards. The Bears can’t expect him to do that again.
Cornerback Nahshon Wright knows what to expect Sunday. The Bears’ starting cornerback spent all last year on the Vikings’ practice squad, going up against the four-time Pro Bowl receiver.
“Super-competitive guy …” Wright said. “In practice, he works hard. You see the results in the game.”
Jefferson marks the second star receiver the Bears have faced in three weeks. They gave up 111 yards to the Bengals’ Ja’Marr Chase in Week 9. Wright didn’t want to compare the two.
“They’re 1A, 1B, however you wanna put it,” he said.
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