Vikings Show Off Their Superiority : Pro football: Defense smothers Harbaugh in 38-10 victory over Bears. Del Rio has two interceptions.

This was a game that the Chicago Bears had to win to count on contending for the playoffs in the last half of the season.

They haven’t played a bigger home game in a couple of years. Or, as it turned out, a worse one.

They were never in it. And long before the end, neither were their fans. Most of them had left Soldier Field long before the game went into the books as a 38-10 victory for the Minnesota Vikings.

A new coach, Dennis Green, is putting together a smooth, powerful team in Minnesota, and Monday night there was evidence aplenty that the guard is changing in the NFC Central, long dominated by Bear Coach Mike Ditka.

It was a game that dropped the Bears to 4-4 this year as the Vikings joined five other 6-2 teams in a National Football Conference in which they’re all chasing the 7-1 Dallas Cowboys.

“This isn’t the end of the season,” Ditka said. “We’ve played eight games, we’ve got eight more to play, and we’ve got to make those eight a lot better.”

The difference, he said, was Minnesota’s leadership and personnel.

“(The Vikings) have good people, and they’re well-coached,” the Bear coach said.

He was right about that. They beat Ditka’s team every which way--with a long touchdown march, a short touchdown march, a long touchdown pass, a short touchdown run with an interception, a long touchdown run with an interception, and a smothering defense.

That defense made it a lopsided game, chewing up Chicago quarterback Jim Harbaugh and keeping the Bears from contending.

Ditka has lost the offensive line that made the Bears so dominating for so many years. His new blockers couldn’t handle Chris Doleman, Henry Thomas, Mike Merriweather and the others in the Minnesota defense, and the upshot was that Harbaugh was down most of the time, with two or three blockers on top of him.

Meanwhile, quarterback Rich Gannon moved the Vikings into control early.

“The important thing is that now we’re 2-0 over the Bears,” said Green, whose team won last month’s game in Minneapolis, 21-20.

When he succeeded Jerry Burns this year, Green inherited the all-pros who for years had prompted many to contend that the Vikings lead the NFL in talent.

They are all older now--Doleman, Merriweather, Carl Lee, Randall McDaniel, Steve Jordan and the other Vikings who have played in a Pro Bowl, 11 of them in all--but they have never needed anything but leadership, and now they’re getting that.

Even so, it took a couple of freak plays to break this one open. The Vikings, who began a cold evening with an 80-yard scoring drive, carried their 7-0 lead into the second quarter and then gained an unexpected assist.

A Chicago running back ran into a teammate who inadvertently stripped away the ball, and Minnesota had it at the Bear 32. Easy touchdown: 14-0.

Next, at the start of the second half, a Chicago wide receiver was blocked out of the way by the umpire, taking both out of the play as Minnesota linebacker Jack Del Rio made an easy interception and returned it 84 yards to another easy touchdown: 21-3. Del Rio finished with two of the Vikings’ three interceptions.

Said Minnesota tight end Steve Jordan, who caught a long pass from Gannon on a 60-yard touchdown play: “We’re setting the tone in this division now.”

Ditka, reluctantly, agreed. “They’re the best team we’ve played this year,” he said.

“It was embarrassing,” said Neal Anderson, Bear running back.

That’s why the crowd left early.