Vikings vs. Bears 2017 live updates: Scores, highlights, and results for 'Monday Night Football'

Mitchell Trubisky makes his NFL debut against the Vikings on Monday night.

It’s an NFC North showdown on Monday Night Football this week. The Chicago Bears host the Minnesota Vikings, with Mitchell Trubisky making his NFL debut at 8:30 p.m. ET on ESPN (WatchESPN).

The Bears selected Trubisky as their quarterback of the future at No. 2 overall, but put him on ice behind Mike Glennon to start the season. Glennon proceeded to commit eight turnovers in just four games as the Bears started off 1-3, convincing John Fox to start Trubisky following a Thursday night blowout loss to the Green Bay Packers in Week 4.

It’s debatable how good Trubisky will be after starting only 13 games at the college level, but he’d be hard-pressed to do worse than Glennon. The Bears don’t have many weapons at receiver, but they do have a strong running back duo in Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen, in addition to an underrated defense. There are a few legitimate building blocks in a rebuilding season.

The Vikings are 2-2, but they just can’t catch any good luck. Their latest injury was a devastating one, with running back Dalvin Cook tearing his ACL. Cook was having a sensational rookie year with 354 rushing yards in the first four games. His absence was felt last week as the Vikings slumped to a 14-7 loss to the Detroit Lions.

Minnesota’s quarterback situation remains cloudy. Case Keenum was poor in Week 4, though Sam Bradford is expected to return from a knee injury. Teddy Bridgewater is also making steady progress and might even be ready to play this season, although he needs to get practice time first. Bridgewater is eligible to come off the PUP list in Week 7.

Despite all the injury concerns, the Vikings still have a top-shelf defense that’s eight in points allowed per game and third in rushing yards allowed per game. That’s helped the team stay competitive so far, and the defense looks certain to be a rude welcoming committee for Trubisky.

Pregame reading

• Tarik Cohen is easily the Bears’ best newcoming player, while Riley Reiff is doing a lot to stabilize the Vikings’ offensive line.

I know that other new faces have contributed to that, such as Remmers at right tackle and rookie Pat Elflein at center. But I honestly feel that Reiff’s contributions at left tackle ... not the least of which is giving the Vikings’ quarterbacks the confidence that they might not get their internal organs rearranged on every single snap ... has been the biggest part of that.

• Dalvin Cook’s injury leaves the Vikings searching for answers once again.

The good news is Minnesota still has the receiving corps to field a potent offense — it’s just going to have to work a lot harder. Stefon Diggs helped carry Keenum to a 369-yard, three-touchdown performance against Tampa Bay in Week 3. He and Adam Thielen give the team a pair of reliable wideouts who can carry a depth chart. Add tight end Kyle Rudolph to the mix — though he’s had a slow follow-up to last year’s 840-yard season — and you’ve got enough capable targets to constitute an offensive threat.

• Trubisky and Glennon have fairly different skill sets, so it’ll be interesting to see how the quarterback change affects the offense.

It was abundantly clear to anyone with eyes that Glennon struggled to run the offense effectively. So much so that Dowell Loggains had to scale back his game plans to fit the hapless quarterback’s meager skill-set. This is why we have to take yet another step back in order to look forward. The 2016 season may give us some more insight as to what we can expect from the offense henceforth.

• The Bears have a ... complicated history with quarterbacks. Windy City Gridiron takes a look back at all the would-be “future” guys who came and went over the decades.

On Monday night, Trubisky makes his first start — and regular season debut — as quarterback of the Chicago Bears. When the Bears selected him as the No. 2-overall pick in the 2017 draft, the media was stunned. Former Bears were stunned. Bears fans were stunned. (John Fox was stunned?)

Yet once we heard his name called, we were greeted with a moment of both awe and curiosity. We were looking at the future.

And yes — Ha! Ha! Ha! — we’ve looked at the future before. Twelve times by my count.