I had the chance to attend Bears practice today, and wanted to share a few observations.

Before we go too far, here’s your obligatory reminder not to read too much into one unpadded practice in the early days of training camp. None of these observations are meant to be absolutes about what is going to happen this season.

With that out of the way, let’s get down to it.

Offense

• I’ll start with Justin Fields, who is far and away the most interesting Bear this year. I spent more time watching him than I should have, and thought it was a mixed bag overall.
  • First the good: Fields was totally in control during team drills. The 1st string offense seemed to dominate their red zone 11 on 11 session (though I didn’t have a great view of it), and they were 2 for 2 in two minute drills to end practice, including consistently getting the ball snapped with about 30 seconds left on the clock when . I especially loved seeing Fields rip a quick slant to Claypool right at the top of his drop to pick up an easy 15 yards. He needs to really improve in the quick game this year, so that play – while not a huge highlight – was my favorite of the day.
  • Now the bad: in all of the QB drills where they were throwing the ball into nets with no defenders present, Fields kept doing a double or triple clutch before letting the ball fly. That’s an issue in the quick game, and I’d like to see him just get the ball out quicker in those situations to practice what it should look like in a game. His accuracy on short passes was also not super consistent, which has also been an issue through his first 2 NFL seasons.
• One other QB I was interested in seeing was undrafted rookie Tyson Bagent, who is making the jump to the NFL out of division 2 Shepherd. The ball has a really nice spin coming out of his hands, and his accuracy on short and medium passes was quite solid, but his lack of arm strength really showed up on anything deep. He also looked really skinny next to the other QBs, so if he sticks around on the practice squad this year, he’ll need to spend some serious time in the weight room and improve his arm strength to have any chance at making it in the NFL.
• The Bears did a lot of red-zone work, and Robert Tonyan kept showing up everywhere. He was on the field with the 1st and 2nd string offenses, and was probably their most targeted player. I’m not sure if that was just a product of the day or a sign that they want to feature him as a red zone weapon.
  • The red zone sessions also featured a ton of motion, which was great to see. It’s something that provides the offense with an advantage, and it’s something that the Bears didn’t use much of last year, but almost every play in 11-on-11 and 7-on-7 featured somebody motioning before the snap.
  • They also had a lot of designed QB runs in the red zone session, and not just with Justin Fields. PJ walker and the 2nd string offense had a good number of them too. I expect that will be a real part of their red zone offense this season.

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Training camp is that magical time of year when every NFL fan can have exactly what they want. If you are an optimist who wants to believe your favorite team is going to be good, there’s plenty of reason for hope. If you get your jollies on being negative (you know who you are), it’s not hard to find something to be pessimistic about.

Regardless of which side of the fence you fall on, today’s article will have something for you. Let’s go through the roster position-by-position and identify why you should be hopeful and why you should be concerned. We did the offense yesterday, so today will focus on the defense.

Defensive Line

Reason for hope: Uhhh… this isn’t exactly an easy place to start. I guess it can’t be worse than last year, when the pass rush was arguably the worst the NFL has seen in the last five years after trading Robert Quinn away midseason. The Bears return Justin Jones and Trevis Gipson, who are both capable but not dominant players, and invested in a whole host of players between free agency (DeMarcus Walker, Andrew Billings, Rasheem Green) and the draft (Gervon Dexter, Zacch Pickens). Dexter in particular has a ton of physical tools and earned rave reviews throughout offseason practices, and could be a rookie who surprises. This group probably won’t be great at rushing the passer, but they don’t have to be to still be effective and help the Bears have a competent defense (as DBB’s Andrew Dannehy pointed out a few weeks ago).

Cause for concern: Barring a rookie stepping up in a big way, nobody on the roster even remotely resembles a top-level starter that can produce while drawing extra defensive attention. At best, this defensive line is a bunch of secondary pieces who can hopefully hold up against the run, but won’t offer much else. You know it’s bad when Terrell Lewis – who enters his 4th NFL season with 6 career sacks and is switching from LB to DE this offseason – drew the most hype of any defensive lineman during OTAs.

Linebacker

Reason for hope: The Bears signed two of the best linebackers available on the free agent market in Tremaine Edmunds and TJ Edwards. Both are solid all-around players who can defend the run and the pass, and they are just entering their primes as they prepare for their 5th NFL season. The depth behind them is pretty solid too, as Jack Sanborn impressed as a rookie last year and 5th round pick Noah Sewell drew positive reports from OTAs when he ran with the starters while Sanborn was out hurt.

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Training camp is that magical time of year when every NFL fan can have exactly what they want. If you are an optimist who wants to believe your favorite team is going to be good, there’s plenty of reason for hope. If you get your jollies on being negative (you know who you are), it’s not hard to find something to be pessimistic about.

Regardless of which side of the fence you fall on, today’s article will have something for you. Let’s go through the roster position-by-position and identify why you should be hopeful and why you should be concerned. We’ll start today with the offense, and move to the defense tomorrow.

Quarterback

Reason for hope: Justin Fields took a small step forward in Year 2, and now enters Year 3 with a vastly improved supporting cast and familiarity with the offense, both of which are firsts for his NFL career. He fits the criteria for making the leap to superstardom better than any other young QB in the NFL.

Cause for concern: Fields takes a ton of sacks and has really struggled on short and quick passes so far in the NFL. Those passes make up a bulk of a QB’s pass attempts, and there is no guarantee he gets better there. If he can’t improve at the easy stuff, he’s never going to be a quality NFL starter.

Running Back

Reason for hope: Khalil Herbert and D’Onta Foreman are two of the best rushers in the NFL, as they finished 4th and 7th, respectively, in rush yards over expectation in 2022. They are both significantly better runners than David Montgomery, which should improve Chicago’s rushing attack that was already among the best in the NFL.

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Camp approaches, which means it’s time for me to grade the roster. Like I’ve done the last few years, I’ll grade on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst in the NFL, 10 being the best, and 5 being an average NFL unit. Let’s get right down to it.

Defensive Ends: 1

Key Players: DeMarcus Walker, Trevis Gipson, Rasheem Green, Dominique Robinson

Others: Terrell Lewis, Jalen Harris, Jalyn Holmes, D’Anthony Jones

This group is bad. Like, really bad. The saddest part is that this is still a significant improvement to what they had after trading Robert Quinn away last year, as Walker is clearly better than the departed Al-Quadin Muhammad, and Green improves the depth. Trevis Gipson is a capable rotational pass rusher when he’s not the guy opposing offenses are worried about, so I’m hopeful he can have something of a bounceback 2023.

This position group is the perfect storm of bad veterans and also no rookies to even consider getting excited about. Unless Dominique Robinson takes a massive step up from a disappointing rookie season, this should easily be the worst position group on the roster (and one of the worst overall in the NFL). It’s still possible Ryan Poles finally makes the defensive end signing he’s been teasing at for a few months, but even then the available options will likely take them from awful to bad.

Defensive Tackles: 2

Key Players: Justin Jones, Andrew Billings, Gervon Dexter Sr., Zacch Pickens

Others: Travis Bell, Andrew Brown, Donovan Jeter

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Camp approaches, which means it’s time for me to grade the roster. Like I’ve done the last few years, I’ll grade on a 1-10 scale, with 1 being the worst in the NFL, 10 being the best, and 5 being an average NFL unit. Let’s get right down to it.

Quarterback: 4

Key Players: Justin Fields, PJ Walker

Others: Nathan Peterman, Tyson Bagent

I should start here by noting that I’m grading based on past production so that I don’t project what I personally think will happen in the future. After a terrible 1st month, Fields more or less spent the bulk of his sophomore campaign as an average passer and elite runner, though he also took a ton of sacks, and a decent number of them were his fault. There is some hope he can make a Year 3 leap towards superstardom, but until he does, it’s hard to rank him much higher than average.

The overall grade gets dinged because of depth; Fields has missed multiple games due to injury in each of his first two seasons, and PJ Walker seems like a less than ideal backup with a career 58% completion rate, 6.4 yards per attempt, and 5 TD to 11 INT. Peterman and Bagent will compete to be the practice squad QB, and we can only hope that we don’t see either of them take a meaningful snap this season.

Running Back: 5

Key Players: Khalil Herbert, D’Onta Foreman, Roschon Johnson

Others: Travis Homer, Trestan Ebner, Khari Blasingame, Robert Burns

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In Part I, we saw that DJ Moore is a legitimate WR1 who should excel with better QB play, Darnell Mooney is a quality WR2 who is pretty well-rounded, and Chase Claypool can be a solid starter if he rebounds from a disastrous 2022 season. Today, we’re going to look at their involvement in the passing game through a number of other lenses.

Targets by Depth

Let’s start by looking at how frequently and effectively Chicago’s WRs were targeted at various depths of the field. The table below shows their stats compared to 80 NFL WRs with 50+ targets in 2022. Areas where they ranked in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while areas in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red. All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF). 

(Side note: sorry if the formatting is poor for the graph. You can click on it to see it in a new window in full if it’s not showing up right for you.)

A few thoughts:

• • The first thing that stands out is that all three WRs saw a high percent of their targets deep down the field. This fully matches with where Justin Fields likes to throw, and should make for some fun football in 2023 as the Bears live out every Madden player’s fantasy and go bombs away.
    • Of course, the efficiency each WR posted on those downfield passes was not as stellar as the volume.
      • Moore was generally above average in the 20+ yard range after being around average in volume and effectiveness in 2020-21. It’s worth noting, however, that More has spent his last three years in Carolina catching passes from a poo-poo platter of QBs, and his overall deep efficiency has been much better than anybody else on the Panthers. It is reasonable to expect that he will be better on deep balls in 2023 catching passes from a better deep ball passer.
      • Mooney was generally below average on deep balls in 2022, which was disappointing considering how well Fields did overall throwing to that area. Mooney was much better on deep passes from Fields in 2021, which gives hope that he can rebound now that he is no longer the WR1 drawing the bulk of defensive attention.
      • Claypool really struggled on deep balls (and pretty much everything else) in 2022, but he was much better in 2020-21, when he saw an even higher 25% of his targets 20+ yards down the field and posted respectable catch rates (35%) and yards/target marks (12.6).
    • On the flip side, Moore and Mooney saw a very low rate of their targets on short passes 0-9 yards downfield, which is an area where Fields has really struggled so far in his career. All three players also struggled when they were targeted short. That may not mesh well with helping Fields grow and improve.
      • It is worth noting that the short game was a big change for Moore in 2022. In 2020-21, he saw 40% of his targets in this range, and posted a highly respectable 72% catch rate and 7.7 yards/target. This gives hope that Moore’s short struggles in 2022 were more due to the offense and QB play than any deficiency on Moore’s part.
      • Likewise, Claypool saw much different short target usage prior to 2022, seeing far fewer targets in this range (39%) but being much more effective with them (78% catch rate, 7.4 yards/target).
    • For the 2nd year in a row, Mooney saw a high rate of targets behind the line of scrimmage but posted poor efficiency on those targets. I’m sure coaches are thinking that getting him the ball on screens gives him a chance to use his blazing speed to pick up easy yards, but it doesn’t seem to be working well, so hopefully we see less of that in 2023.

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All of a sudden, the Bears’ WR room looks fairly solid, as they return Darnell Mooney, their leading receiver over the last two years, added Chase Claypool in a midseason 2022 trade, and traded for DJ Moore from Carolina this offseason. As you can see in the table below, this gives Chicago three WRs who put up starting-caliber (top 96, or 3 per team) production in 2022.

Of course, volume isn’t everything.

It is also worth exploring how efficient a player was with the targets they received. The table below shows some basic efficiency stats for Moore, Mooney, and Claypool in 2022, as well as ranks relative to the 80 NFL WRs who saw at least 50 targets. The spread of outcomes for those 80 players is also shown to give more context overall. Any areas where a player ranked in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while the bottom 25% are highlighted in red.

A few thoughts:

• At first glance, the efficiency for all three players looks pretty poor. Mooney was around average in all three metrics, while Moore had a low catch percentage but was otherwise fine and Claypool was bad across the board. It’s important to keep in mind, however, that all three were in bad passing offenses last year, largely due to poor quarterback play.
  • Moore spent his season catching passes from Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, and PJ Walker. As a team, the Panthers finished 31st in completion percentage, 15th in yards/attempt, and 27th in passer rating.
  • Mooney spent 2022 in Chicago catching passes from Justin Fields, Trevor Siemian, Nathan Peterman, and Tim Boyle. The Bears were 30th in completion percentage, 21st in yards/attempt, and 26th in passer rating, so within that context producing average efficiency overall is a big win for Mooney. As we saw during Fields in Focus, Mooney was one of only two competent targets the Bears had last year, and there was definitely a clear split in efficiency throwing to Mooney/Kmet and everybody else.
  • Claypool split his season between Chicago and Pittsburgh, where he caught passes from Mitchell Trubisky and Kenny Pickett. The Steelers finished 19th in completion percentage, 28th in yards/attempt, and 30th in passer rating.

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In the last two days, we’ve looked in depth at tight end Cole Kmet’s production, and found that he’s not going to be a guy you build your passing attack around, but has proven he’s a solid secondary receiving weapon who fits well in Chicago’s current offense. We also saw earlier this offseason that Kmet is a solid run blocker, which the Bears clearly value in this scheme.

Since he has finished three years in the NFL, Kmet is eligible for an early contract extension that could lock him in to Chicago through his prime. Ryan Poles stated earlier this offseason that he would be looking to sign a few key young players to extensions before the season starts, and Kmet seems like the most obvious candidate there.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the tight end market to see what Kmet’s deal could end up looking like.

Favorable Comparisons (Kmet)

Let’s start by looking at contracts Cole Kmet’s camp will point to as deals signed by comparable players. The table below shows five such deals signed by tight ends in the last two years.

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In Part I, we saw that both Cole Kmet and Robert Tonyan are used more against zone than man coverage, and today we’re going to look at their involvement in the passing game through a number of other lenses.

Targets by Depth

Let’s start by looking at how frequently and effectively Chicago’s tight ends were targeted at various depths of the field. The table below shows their stats compared to 29 NFL tight ends with 50+ targets in 2022. Areas where they ranked in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while areas in the bottom 25% are highlighted in red. All data is from Pro Football Focus (PFF). 

(Side note: sorry if the formatting is poor for the graph. You can click on it to see it in a new window in full if it’s not showing up right for you.)

A few thoughts:

• The first thing that stands out is that both Kmet and Tonyan were heavily targeted on screen passes behind the line of scrimmage. Kmet in particular was good at converting these into yards by running well with the ball after the catch, a skill that he also showed in 2021 and the Bears did a good job of utilizing more frequently in 2022.
• Looking at Kmet beyond the line of scrimmage, he was rarely targeted in the intermediate range, but he was highly productive there when targeted. This closely matches Justin Fields’ passing profile in 2022, so hopefully Fields can target that area more aggressively in 2023 and Kmet can benefit.
  • Kmet’s deep passing profile, where he saw a high target volume with average efficiency, also matches Fields’ 2022 performance.
  • Where we see Kmet appreciably outperform Fields as a whole is in the short game, where Kmet was around average in pass efficiency while Fields struggled mightily on all of his passes. That matches what we also saw with Fields throwing to other solid pass catchers like Darnell Mooney and David Montgomery, so there is hope that improving the talent on the field around Fields will naturally improve the short game in 2023.
• Part of that improving talent comes from Tonyan, who excelled in the short game but didn’t do much down the field.
  • The downfield struggles are a distinct change from 2020, when 35% of Tonyan’s targets were at least ten yards downfield and he caught 75% of those passes for 16.1 yards/target.
  • Like we said in Part I, 2023 will be year two after his knee injury, which is when many players return closer to their pre-injury norms, and 2020 (pre-injury) Tonyan was a significantly better player than the 2022 version.

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All of a sudden, the Bears’ TE room looks fairly stacked, as they return Cole Kmet – who led the team in receiving in 2022 – and added veteran Robert Tonyan as their TE2. As you can see in the table below, this gives Chicago two TEs who put up starting-caliber volume in 2022.

Of course, volume isn’t everything.

It is also worth exploring how efficient a player was with the targets they received. The table below shows some basic efficiency stats for Kmet and Tonyan in 2022, as well as ranks relative to the 29 NFL tight ends who saw at least 50 targets. The spread of outcomes for those 29 players is also shown to give more context overall. Any areas where a player ranked in the top 25% are highlighted in green, while the bottom 25% are highlighted in red. The table also includes Kmet’s stats from 2020 and 2021 to see how his efficiency has changed throughout his career.

A few thoughts:

• Kmet saw his volume drop from 93 to 69 targets in 2022, but his efficiency skyrocketed. This shows both Kmet’s growth as a player and a new offensive scheme that aligns with his skill set.
  • As we saw when looking at Jusin Fields earlier this offseason, the Bears used play action far more in 2022 than they did in 2021, and that deception was able to help free Kmet and mask his athletic deficiencies as a route runner. Unfortunately, I don’t have access to stats on play action for receivers, but this film study with Kmet shows a number of his big plays from 2022 coming when he was uncovered due to play action.
  • With the addition of DJ Moore this offseason, plus the return to health of Chase Claypool and Darnell Mooney, it’s reasonable to assume Kmet will be farther down the receiving order in 2023. He might see a decrease in total targets for a 2nd year in a row, but an efficient secondary weapon in the passing game can be extremely valuable.

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