Bears’ Khalil Mack ready for physical game: ‘Pop your Advils and get ready’

Before the Redskins game Monday night, Bears head coach Matt Nagy challenged his defense to post three takeaways.

They got five.

“Should I have asked for more?” Nagy said Friday.

Well, Khalil Mack?

“He should, he should,” Mack said. This group is capable of it. Got a lot of dynamic players. It’s always fun stepping on the field with them.”

Maybe Nagy will ask for more Sunday, when the Bears host the Vikings in a game dripping with NFC North implications. Both his defense and its best player are up for the challenge.

Mack is coming off a vintage game — he recorded two strip sacks of quarterback Case Keenum and had a third wiped away by Prince Amukamara’s illegal hands to the face penalty. A fourth Mack sack came back when the outside linebacker jumped offside.

“It’s blood in the water,” defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano said. “When that stuff starts to go, it’s momentum, for your entire defense, for your entire team. You can feed off of that. It goes both ways, you know, because we saw it turn in the second half. Momentum is a crazy thing.

“But when he comes in and the thing is that he does this every day. … They race out to the ball every period that we have. He takes the field on game day the same way. They say the speed of the lead determines the rate of the pack. Everybody’s just trying to keep up and match his intensity and match his play.”

He reminds Vikings coach Mike Zimmer of another famous edge rusher.

“You could probably put him in Lawrence Taylor’s same category,” Zimmer said. “The guys who are extremely explosive. But he plays with such violence and desire to get to the quarterback. His physicality really shows up to me.

“And then he has the strength and the speed and the quickness to avoid hands and linemen and chips and all the things that he gets. So it’s very impressive.”

Whatever the Vikings cook up Sunday — whether they call on a tight end or running back to help block on the edge — won’t surprise Mack.

“I mean, I feel like I’ve seen a lot of different looks the last six years,” Mack said. “What they gonna do, I don’t know. But whatever they do I’ll be ready for it.”

Mack has always been the Bears defender that opponents circle first. But the Vikings might be more apt to double-team — or triple-team — him on Sunday if Pro Bowl defensive lineman Akiem Hicks sits out with a right knee injury. He hasn’t practiced all week.

“I call him ‘Mufasa,’” Mack said, referencing the father from the “Lion King”. “He’s down there doing the dirty work, taking two guys, talking about four hands on him the whole game. Yeah, he does a lot for this team. He’s an impactful guy not only on the field but off the field as well.”

The next step, he said, is to “step up and ball” if Hicks is out.

“It’s a challenge,” he said. “Guys gotta be able to accept the challenge and set the standard.”

Particularly, he said, against running back Dalvin Cook, who leads the NFL in rushing.

“When you got a team that like to run the football it affects the whole game,” Mack said. “It affects the game plan, it affects the mindset of the game, just going into the game you know it’s going to be a physical battle.

“Pop your Advils and get ready. It’s going down.”