NFC Notes: Chase Claypool, Bears, Packers, Vikings

Bears

• Bears WR Chase Claypool was criticized by his teammates following his Week 1 performance, with WR D.J. Moore saying: “We addressed it on the sideline. Chase knew during the game his effort wasn’t good enough to help us win…He will be ready to go and ready for his assignments.” (Dianna Russini)
• Bears GM Ryan Poles was also asked about Claypool’s performance: “I would say really, for anyone on our team, there’s a standard for how we’re going to play football here and if you can’t rise to that standard, and live in that space, it’s going to be hard to perform for the Chicago Bears. With Chase, I think he’s a guy who has all the motivation in the world to be a good football player. He’s got to clean some things up. We had some good conversations. I expect to see him make those changes and if he doesn’t, then we’ll have to figure out what we’re going to do after that.” (Courtney Cronin)
• Bears CB Kyler Gordon had surgery on his broken hand and HC Matt Eberflus is hopeful that Gordon will be ready to make his return in Week 6. (Dan Wiederer)

Packers

• The NFL fined Packers LB De’Vondre Campbell $10,927 for unnecessary roughness and S Rasul Douglas $13,659 for unsportsmanlike conduct in Week 1. (Rob Demovsky)

Vikings

Vikings HC Kevin O’Connell knows there is much to improve as his team is having a 0-2 start but also believes that there are things to be encouraged about.

“Although the results these first two weeks have not gone our way, I do think that there’s some encouraging things about our team right now from a standpoint of certain aspects of how we’re playing, whether it be Kirk’s performance last night, the way our pass game continues to keep us in football games, despite a lot of things that negatively affect us as far as turning the football over with the fumbling issue,” O’Connell said, via Pro Football Talk. “Our team’s fight to be an onside kick away from having a chance to win that game in a very, very tough place to go win on a short week. But there is, no doubt, some major, major areas of improvement from a standpoint of ball security. You just can’t be minus-6 after two games in the turnover differential. It goes against everything we do believe with our football philosophy, and we’re already in the process of finding new and hopefully more results-based ways of getting back to the basics of drilling and techniques and fundamentals of every rep we take to make sure ball security becomes a premium.”

• Vikings’ DE Dean Lowry was fined $10,927 by the league for a face mask penalty on against the Buccaneers in Week 1. (Andrew Krammer)