The Bears face a tough task in a must win game tonight versus Adrian Peterson and the Minnesota Vikings on national TV.

Defense Must Play Disciplined
Where stopping the run would be a normal defensive key to victory for the Bears, they have not been playing well versus the run lately. Worse still, the Bears face arguably the best running back in the league in Adrian Peterson. I don't expect the Bears to stop Peterson tonight. He will get his. I wouldn't be surprised if Peterson runs for 150ish yards and scores two touchdowns. That being said, if the Bears can play mostly disciplined against the run, a small victory would be to at least limit the damage caused by Peterson. I don't think the Bears can survive allowing Peterson to run for 180 yards or three scores.

Martz Must Adjust
Martz' NFL future is on the line more than it's ever been. Analysts have been increasingly critical of his lack of adjustments to his personnel. Even quarterback Jay Cutler himself has made comments about adjustments that need to be made to better fit their personnel. While Martz has admitted he does need to make the adjustments and that he is working on it, it begs the questions as to why it took so long for it to happen? It's time for Martz to prove that he can get his offense to consistently produce points tonight. Martz must call the right game that best fits his players if the offense is going to ever gain any confidence this season. Martz must give the Bears offense their best chance to find it's rhythm and produce at least three touchdown scoring drives to give the Bears their best chance of beating the Vikings tonight. If the offense struggles yet again this week, it could be the beginning of the end for Mike Martz' tenure with the Bears.

Manage the Roster
Coaching is always big in any game. After making embarrassing mistakes in losing to the Lions on Monday night, Lovie Smith has benched both starting safeties Harris and Meriweather in favor of Major Wright and rookie Chris Conte. Also, after consecutive in-game benchings of Frank Omiyale, he will start the game on the bench tonight. Lovie will have to do a good job of managing these changes in-game, especially at the safety position where he has more knowledge of the position. Rookie safety Chris Conte will be facing a baptism by fire in his first NFL start tonight versus Adrian Peterson. It's a tough task for the rookie who will be attacked throughout the game. I'm sure he will make mistakes. It will be very interesting to see how long Lovie Smith leaves Conte in the game for. This is a must win game if the Bears want to preserve their slim playoff chances alive. I won't be surprised if Lovie pulls the “pluggie” on others tonight should their performances warrant it.

Final Pick: Bears 23 Vikings 27
This is definitely a must win game that the Bears could and should win. Though I'm not counting on it for the purposes of my pick, I could easily see a Devin Hester return being the difference in the game. The reason I can't pick the Bears this week is mainly because of my lack of confidence in their offense. Last week when I picked the Bears to upset the Lions, I realized I was doing it based on my overly hopeful expectations of our unproven offense. I picked the Lions to score 23, but I picked the Bears to score 30 including a non-offensive touchdown. Fool me once... as they say. Well, this week I'm in Missouri and the Bears offense needs to “show me” that they can consistently score more than two touchdowns before I can count on them again.