Bears

Bears rookie RB Kyle Monangai spoke about his breakout performance during his first career start.

“I have high expectations for myself, I put a lot of pressure on myself,” Monangai said, via Bears Wire. “The work I put in, I expect the results I get, but it doesn’t mean I’m satisfied or anything like that. It just means I’ve got to keep going. This is more of just letting myself know I’m on the right track. Now it’s time to keep going, put the foot on the gas and continue to keep this trend going.”

• Bears HC Ben Johnson said LB T.J. Edwards underwent surgery on his broken hand and is also dealing with a lingering hamstring injury. However, Johnson doesn’t think they’ll need to place him on injured reserve: “We’re thinking he’ll come back before we need to do that.” (Kevin Fishbain)
• As for how they will distribute carries between RBs D’Andre Swift and Monangai, Johnson said he wants to ride the hot hand: “I believe in a guy having the hot hand. One guy, if he’s feeling it and giving us a spark, we might lean on that a little bit longer.” (Courtney Cronin)

Lions

Lions QB Jared Goff has been sacked 18 times, which is on pace to be the most he’s ever been sacked in his 10-year career. Goff knows he can do better to get the ball out faster, and he has faith the offensive line will improve as well. 

“You don’t want to have that, you want to limit that as much as you can, and I think the last two weeks is not indicative of who we are,” Goff said, via Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk. “I’ll try to get rid of the ball a little faster to help those guys, and I know they want to play better too.”

• Lions HC Dan Campbell said CB D.J. Reed (hamstring) is doing well with his recovery and could return in early December: “He’s looking good. Getting better and better.” (Eric Woodyard)

Vikings

Vikings QB J.J. McCarthy said he’s embraced “nine” as his alter-ego and said that he’s embraced it after being on injured reserve all last season.

“It really kind of started to show up this year, and it came about last year during IR,” McCarthy said, via PFT. “Just never had a full season, where you want to be out there so freaking bad, but you can’t. It was just this built-up anger that was kind of ready to just explode, and I chose to harness it instead of letting it go into a self-destructive kind of way.”

McCarthy has harnessed his anger and his inner self to transform himself into a better quarterback.

“I kind of love feeding that wolf, because my entire life at [the University of Michigan], there was a smiley face on my hand, and [if] you smile, and you have fun, you’re going to play better and all that — which is true,” McCarthy said. “But I also think there’s a lot of power that comes from that built-up anger that you can transmute into your performance.”

• The Minnesota Vikings officially ruled out CB Jeff Okudah and TE Josh Oliver from Week 10, while they listed S Theo Jackson and RB Aaron Jones as questionable. Jones was later revealed to be available to play.
• Jonathan Jones reports that because the Vikings did not trade for a backup quarterback at the deadline, they may look to re-sign veteran QB Carson Wentz.