Step 1 in Bears' 'Take the North' mission is taking down Vikings

When Ryan Poles became the Bears’ general manager in 2022, he laid out a mission statement to ‘‘take the North and never give it back.’’ It sounded good, and it would look great on a T-shirt if the Bears had done some damage in the NFC North.Instead, after three consecutive last-place finishes, it haunts them.The NFC North is arguably the most rigorous division in the NFL, and the Lions and Packers have been title contenders in recent seasons. But the first step for the Bears to ‘‘take the North’’ is to establish definitively that they’re ahead of the Vikings, whom they...