The #Bears are trading WR Anthony Miller to the #Texans, sources tell me and @RapSheet. Long rumored to be dealt, the former second-round pick gets a fresh start.

— Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) July 25, 2021

DraftKings Sportsbook has now installed Minnesota as the favorite to win the NFC North.

Every snap.

Every handoff.

Every throw.

Every interaction with Cole Kmet.

Every conversation with Flip and Bill Lazor.

Every single moment of Justin Fields’ training camp will be discussed and scrutinized this summer. So for now, we’re going to (a) acknowledge Fields is clearly the most important player to watch while (b) casting our gaze in a different direction for the sake of variation.

And my gaze is shifting to Anthony Miller. 

Sam Mustipher and Teven Jenkins are going to be given time to develop during the regular season. Kmet is going to be a productive tight end, especially with more competent quarterback play. Allen Robinson is a professional and understands his clearest path to another big contract is paved with production. None of these players are fighting for roster spots this summer. None of these guys have anything to prove before they start keeping score.

Miller is fighting for a roster spot. Miller does have a lot to prove. Because Anthony Miller is a good football player. Inconsistent? Sure. Temperamental? Absolutely. But he clearly has the ability to be productive at this level. He’s not Javon Wims, a decent talent with the brains of a duffel bag. He’s not Riley Ridley, a late-round draft pick struggling to navigate his way onto the active roster due to lack of everything.

Miller is a gifted athlete and now, with the emergence of Darnell Mooney, can slide into his more natural slot role and rip defenses apart with an endless supply of crossing routes (where he seems to be most comfortable). With Miller, it is going to be about attitude. It is going to be about embracing a new role. It is going to be about understanding his ceiling is no longer frontline NFL wide receiver – that ship has sailed. His ceiling is now dynamic role player. Miller can’t be Isaac Bruce. But he can be Ricky Proehl. And Proehl had a brilliant NFL career.

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Was on mini-vacation over the last week so I’m late to this video, which is a pretty exceptional piece of work. Also, having known nothing about Kollman prior to seeing this, I’m truly impressed by his ability to build an independent outlet – via YouTube – to the size he has. It is not easy. This video is well worth your time today.

This whole “Player to Watch” concept is a bit tired, isn’t it? What exactly is there to watch in camp when it comes to Robert Quinn? Or Danny Trevathan? There’s no production to monitor. Nothing the team shows to fans and media means anything. So what are we watching?

But there are things of note, and those things usually involve who is getting reps where. (Hence, yesterday’s focus on which player will be returning kickoffs in a few weeks.) This summer, when it comes to the Bears defense, there is one thing to watch: health.

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Khalil Mack has been wrestling with back (and other) injuries for two seasons.

Akiem Hicks is constantly in and out of the lineup.

Robert Quinn never got his season started in 2020 due to a series of knocks.

Jaylon Johnson is being asked to assume the top corner role but, while he is immensely talented, he is also chronically-injured.

Eddie Goldman just took a year off from playing football. That’s not easy and his body’s response will be something to monitor.

Danny Trevathan is aging (aren’t we all?) and slowing.

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This is an older group, with it unlikely Mack, Hicks, Quinn and Trevathan will be on the roster in 2022. But if the Bears want to be a playoff team this season – no matter who is playing quarterback – they need almost all of the aforementioned players to stay on the field (with the plausible exception of Trevathan).

• Without Mack, the pass rush is non-existent.
• Without Hicks, Bilal Nichols will be asked to take the leap from solid role player to top-tier interior lineman. (While a good player, he has not made that leap yet.)
• Without Quinn, it’s unlikely the pass rush will be able to compensate deficiencies on the backend.
• Without Johnson, any team with two capable wide receivers will tear this defense apart.
• Without Goldman (again), the run defense won’t hold up over a long season.

Is it important which corner settles into the slot role? Sure. But if Kindle Vildor wins the job this summer that doesn’t mean he’ll still have the job come October. What’s important to watch this summer is the health of the aging stars. Because that will have the greatest impact on 2021 success.

Cordarrelle Patterson was the best kickoff return man in football during his tenure with the Chicago Bears, and ascended into the ranks of the best kickoff return men of all-time. Patterson was also the club’s most reliable gunner on punt coverage and showed remarkable versatility across special teams units the last two seasons. This is a difficult player to replace, but the Bears certainly did not have the financial resources to bring him back at what can only be described as a vanity position in this modern NFL.

We know who the kicker and punter will be in 2021. We know Tarik Cohen will be back on punt returns, especially with Damien Williams brought in to lighten his offensive load. It is impossible to analyze who’ll handle Patterson’s “defending” roles, as those spots are often the byproduct of roster decisions to come later in the summer. (Sherrick McManis is still a free agent and the Bears are still interested in bringing him back.)

So who should fans watch when it comes to the kickoff return spot?

Williams, Damiere Byrd and Marquise Goodwin each have extremely-limited kick return experience and none of them profile for the position athletically. (Speed is great but most speedsters fail due to lack of vision, elusiveness.) Anthony Miller can do the gig but Miller might not be on the roster come September. Dazz Newsome seemed a natural to give work there, but his lack of experience doing so in college, coupled with a broken collarbone, leave it unlikely special teams coach Chris Tabor will get much time to experiment with him this preseason.

That leaves Khalil Herbert. And the rookie, even in a crowded running backs room, has a direct path to making the 53-man roster as a serious contributor.

Three reasons I like Herbert for the role:

• He’s an exclusively downhill runner and that’s what kickoff returns are: find the seam and get what you can. (His highlight package at Tech above shows what I’m talking about.) He’s also incredibly difficult to bring down on first contact. Often if a kick return man survives first contact, he’s got a chance to score.
• Pace and the personnel folks will be eager to score more points in the later rounds and getting serious contributions from a sixth-round pick would do just that.
• Production. Herbert returned 16 kicks last season at an average clip of 26.9 yards per return last season. Nobody else on the current roster had anywhere near that production returning kickoffs over the last calendar year.

With training camp just days away, this feels like it could be Herbert’s job to lose. And maybe it should be.

Me, in the famed Himalaya Bunker, off the fourth fairway at Royal St. George’s. This week The Open returns to the southern coast of England. (Picture was taken for effect. I split the fairway.)

Football is getting closer. But there’s still relatively-little happening in the NFL for a few weeks. So here are some more links.

• If you’re interested in golf, this is one of your favorite weeks. The Open is on early morning, and over by early afternoon. If you don’t know about the greatness of Royal St. George’s, here’s the Golf Channel hole-by-hole guide. If you’re looking to gamble on the tournament, take a Top 20 shot on Lucas Herbert. The Australian is coming off two top 20s in the states, a win in Ireland and top ten in Scotland. You can’t find better form (sans Rahm) heading into this tournament.
• Matt Nagy is selling a “time is now” narrative when it comes to his offense: “I think what we’ve put together — Ryan Pace has done such an amazing job of building the last three years — this roster that we have, we have a lot of depth,” Nagy said told Kenneth Davis on the Under Center Podcast. “And so now to be able to have the time to put together, we feel like we’re going to have a great opportunity offensively to to do what we need to do. The time is now, we know that, and we’re looking forward to it. You can’t live in the past. And that’s not what we’re going to do. I refuse to allow that to happen. This is a new season, and so we got a fresh start. So let’s see what we can do with it.” (I get the urgency but…is the time really now for his offense? Can he really make that argument for any game Andy Dalton starts?)
• The Bears are doing their part to help local bars and restaurants still struggling to rebound from the pandemic. “It’s been just over a month since Chicago’s bars and restaurants fully reopened after more than a year of pandemic restrictions, but the road to economic recovery remains long and daunting for many in the hospitality industry. With football season approaching, the Chicago Bears are offering a select few restaurants promotional partnerships and marketing opportunities…Applications are live.”

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Justin Fields didn’t let a little leg injury bother him ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #McGregorPoirier3 pic.twitter.com/VAYFR5R1sd

— Barstool OSU (@BarstoolOSU) July 11, 2021

Chicago Bears defensive lineman Eddie Goldman is back in Chicago working out.

(Video via @spear_training) pic.twitter.com/b63Ugn3PeS

— Daniel Greenberg (@ChiSportUpdates) July 8, 2021

Quite a few NFL teams believe Justin Fields should have went No. 1 overall 👀 pic.twitter.com/dKrorEQnLl

— BFR (@BearsFilmRoom) June 30, 2021