Chicago Bears TE Cole Kmet saw his production jump across the board in his 2021 sophomore campaign, as his targets, receptions, and receiving yards all more than doubled from his rookie year. This left him ranking among the top 20 NFL TEs in the main three receiving categories, as you can see in the table below.

Of course, those are all volume stats, and high volume does not necessarily mean that you are a top player. Chicago’s receiving options were extremely limited in 2021, and the former coaching staff had a vested interest in getting Kmet the ball to justify their second-round investment in him, so of course he saw a lot of balls thrown his way. But how effective was he with those targets?

In order to dig into that question, I’m going to take a closer look at Kmet’s underlying metrics to see how well he performed. This will be very similar to what I recently did with Darnell Mooney, the only other returning pass catcher on the Bears.

Man vs. Zone

Let’s start by looking at how Kmet did against man and zone coverages compared to his peers. I split the overall TE group based on how many targets players earned, and the sample broke down like this:

• 50+ targets: 25 TEs fell in this group. With 32 NFL teams, this is more or less the starting TEs.
• 20-49 targets: 33 TEs fell in this range, meaning these are generally the second TEs on a team.
• Less than 20 targets: 64 players fit in here, so these are the depth TE on a team.

The table below shows how TEs in those groupings performed in a variety of metrics against both man (orange) and zone (blue) coverage. All stats are from Pro Football Focus (PFF).

A few thoughts:

• Like we did with Darnell Mooney, it’s important to take the offense into consideration when evaluating Kmet’s stats against his peers. The Bears as a team ranked in the bottom five in the majority of passing categories, so it’s not really a surprise to see some of his efficiency stats looking low. For example, the Bears were about 4% lower than the NFL average in completion % (catch % here) and 0.4 yards below the NFL average in yards/attempt (yards/target here).
• Given that context, Kmet served as a capable weapon against zone coverage. His catch percentage and yards/target mark are fairly solid, if unspectacular, though it’s worth noting his poor YAC (yards after catch) performance. Time will tell if that’s a scheme issue from last year (Andy Dalton and Justin Fields ranked 21st and 31st, respectively, in YAC/completion of the 33 QBs with 200+ passing attempts in 2021) or a Kmet issue, but it’s worth noting Mooney did not have the same YAC issues. Kmet’s average catch against zone is also a bit shorter down the field than most starting TEs, which is notable considering how Justin Fields had one of the deepest average passes in the NFL last year.
• Kmet’s man metrics, on the other hand, are unquestionably poor. His catch rate was just fine, but his average catch against man was very short, indicating he was only able to produce against man coverage on dump-offs underneath. This is in line with the TE2 and depth TE group, not the starters. Kmet’s YAC here was also laughably bad, indicating he was unable to consistently break tackles and turn those dump-offs into more meaningful gains.

Read More …

After a promising rookie campaign, Chicago Bears WR Darnell Mooney had a breakthrough sophomore season in 2021. He posted the first 1000-yard season of his career and, as you can see in the table below, was among the top 20 WRs in the NFL in the three main receiving categories.

Of course, these are all volume stats, and high volume does not necessarily mean you are a top player. Mooney was the only not-terrible WR in Chicago last year, so he naturally saw a lot of balls thrown his way. As the only returning WR in 2022, I think it’s worth digging a bit into the advanced statistics to see how well Mooney did with those passes.

Man vs. Zone

Let’s start by looking at how Mooney did against man and zone coverages compared to his peers. I split the overall WR group based on how many targets players earned, and the samples broke down like this:

• 100+ targets: 33 WRs fell in this group, and with 32 NFL teams, this was basically the WR1s.
• 50-99 targets: 56 WRs are in this group, making it the WR 2 + 3 for each team. These are generally starters, but not the top targets.
• 30-49 targets: 28 WRs are in this group, making it roughly a teams’ WR4. These are the top backups.
• Less than 30 targets: 117 WRs (about 3.6/team) fell in this group, and these can be viewed as depth pieces.

The table below shows how WRs in those groupings performed in a variety of metrics against both man (orange) and zone (blue) coverage. All stats are from Pro Football Focus (PFF).

A few thoughts:

• It’s important to take the offense into consideration when evaluating Mooney’s stats against his peers. The Bears as a team ranked in the bottom 5 in the majority of passing categories, so it’s not really a surprise to see some of his efficiency stats looking low. For example, the Bears were about 4% lower than the NFL average in completion % (catch % here) and 0.4 yards below the NFL average in yards/attempt (yards/target here).
• Even given that context, Mooney’s catch percentage is still quite low against both man and zone coverage. In man, this can be explained by his deeper targets (higher air yards/target), but that’s not true in zone. Mooney’s drop rate was not an issue (4.7%, 12th best of 33 WRs with 100+ targets), so I’m inclined to chalk this up to a high rate of uncatchable passes (Justin Fields was one of the least accurate passers in the NFL last year).

Read More …

While fans debate which wide receiver the Chicago Bears should draft, the trench guys running the team just could go in a different direction. Matt Eberflus indicated as much in his interview with Cris Collinsworth, released last week:

“Ryan (Poles) and I are really clear on our vision for the football team,” Eberflus said. “He’s an ex-offensive lineman so we believe in the line play, we think that it starts up front and we believe in that. We believe in the physical punch that it takes from the offensive line running off the ball and same thing on defense. So that’s going to be a very important part to us in terms of determining who we are, what our identity is as a football team.”

It could be pre-draft manipulation, but that doesn’t really seem to be the new coach’s style. It seems more likely than not they’re going to beef up the offensive and defensive lines.

As Eberflus said, Poles is a former offensive lineman. Have you ever heard of a former offensive lineman who doesn’t think building up the offensive line is one of the two most important factors in having a successful offense? Flus was a linebacker. How many linebackers gush about the importance wide receiver play? These are trench guys and you can bet that they won’t tolerate fielding a team that is weak at the line of scrimmage.

Read More …

This just in: noted sports blogger and cinema aficionado found speechless on Tuesday. World left wondering whether the role will be recast or if he’ll find words again before the next deadline.

— Rob the Bretor (@robsteddy) April 18, 2022

This is awesome. Walter Payton highlights at JSU. @GoJSUTigersFB @DeionSanders pic.twitter.com/Imp8AdkBs9

— DT SPORTS (@DTSports73) April 14, 2022

For 18 of the 32 NFL teams, there are 348 days without football.

And that’s just too much time.

Too much time to gallantly scroll the witless wasteland of Twitter, engaging in unwinnable debates about whether a young player might be good in the future. Too much time antagonize other fan bases on Facebook or TikTok or Reddit or OnlyFans because, you know, their team stinks and your team doesn’t. Too much time to bemoan every free agent signing, no matter how little the investment, and study every draft “prospect”, even when 95% of those prospects have no chance of being a viable professional player.

It’s not the fault of the fans. Fans love football. But do they really love football that much more now than they did when the draft was held on weekend afternoons and when free agent signings were only known because you’d read about them in the paper a day or two after they happened? An overwhelming majority of NFL fans are not even on Twitter – a fact often forgotten by those of us who seem to spend our lives on the platform.

Truth is, there is now far too much media covering the sport (and sports generally) and that media is forced to operate on a 365-day calendar. There is no vacation from the clicks business. The newspapers need you to click and they’ve learned mock drafts are click gold. The Athletic needs new subscribers: that is their entire value proposition. CHGO needs to find their foothold in the marketplace. The only way to do these things is constant engagement. The only way to successfully engage is to launch “takes” into the sports atmosphere.

And my god, EVERYBODY HAS A PODCAST. LITERALLY, EVERYBODY. Well, there is one Bears-related entity that doesn’t have a podcast: me. “The Weekend Show” was fun to produce but it was always far more of an audio variety show than an actual Bears pod. (That sometimes sums up this entire enterprise.) I’ve been asked to do a podcast a hundred times. I’ve been asked why I don’t do a podcast two hundred. My answer is simple: I don’t have that much to say. And when I have something unique that requires my voice, I do one of those Twitter audio things and get it done in two minutes. Also, I’m not that interested in the stuff that doesn’t tangibly happen on the field.

You know, those other 348 days.

Read More …

I don’t know which of the 115,000 individuals doing mock drafts are good at it. I try to read very few. But today I am using the mock of Ryan Wilson at CBS to establish which secondary players the Bears may see as options with their two second round selections.

The Bears have picks 33 and 52. So I’ve isolated the DBs Wilson has being selected between 35th and 50th.

Pick 34: Kyler Gordon, CB, Washington

Pick 35: Lewis Cine, S, Georgia

Pick 42: Roger McCreary, CB, Auburn

Pick 48: Jalen Pitre, S, Baylor

Read More …

If the Chicago Bears actually like David Montgomery, you can bet they’ll end up paying him.

The team will likely wait until after the season, though that could be a mistake if they’re able to get their running game going. While fans have argued about if Montgomery is good enough or if any running back should be paid, in general, the fact of the matter is teams who run the system the Bears are going to run usually end up paying their running backs.

Offensive coordinator Luke Getsy comes from Green Bay where the team spent a second-round pick on AJ Dillon and then paid Aaron Jones a contract that averaged $12 million per year. That wasn’t an exception to the rule. Other running backs from the same system who have gotten large contracts include Dalvin Cook, Todd Gurley, Jerick McKinnon, Arian Foster, Davonta Freeman and Derrick Henry. The Cleveland Browns paid both Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt.

The people who run this offense value running backs, even if fans do not. The question isn’t if they’ll be willing to pay a running back, it’s if they’ll be willing to pay Montgomery.

Getsy didn’t say much when he was introduced; at one point he even questioned the idea of what a playbook is. Head coach Matt Eberflus was effusive in his praise of Montgomery when he met the media at the owner’s meetings.

“You talk about motor and mean, yeah, he is that guy,” Eberflus said. “Serious. A pro. Worker. He’s going to be exciting to work with, and he’s going to fit right in. He’s the kind of guy that just says, ‘Hey, watch me go. I’m not going to say a whole bunch of things, but just watch me do my job.'” Eberflus has spoken about adding more running backs to the mix, but it’s clear he likes Montgomery. A lot.

Perhaps it’s just offseason talk or a smoke screen; we can’t really rule anything out right now. But if Eberflus is sincere, and Montgomery plays well in 2022, he’s going to be in Chicago beyond next season.

The Cream of the Crop: Matt Araiza, San Diego State

Note: This kid has the potential to be a game changer at the position. Rarely do punters have highlight reels like this, but Araiza has one of the more powerful legs in recent memory. He’s going to get drafted.

An Aussie in Champaign: Blake Hayes, Illinois

Note: UFA contender for the Bears. From Turf Show Times: “From Melbourne, Australia. 6’4” tall, 226 pounds. LZ says elite coffin corner punter, outstanding control. Lacks hang time and power, operational time too slow, had 3 punts blocked. He’s left footed. Had 45.1 average last season, career best. Turns 24 in August. I don’t have as much a problem as LZ with his timing, but he doesn’t have a strong leg or strikes the ball consistently. He is good at downing the ball inside the 20.”

A Guinness Punter: Jordan Stout, Penn State

Note: From a piece at Collegian: “In his senior year, Stout was No. 5 in the Big Ten, averaging 46 yards per kick with only three punts crossing the goal line for a touchback. Stout was one of the best in the conference at pinning opponents deep, racking up the third-most punts inside the 20-yard line with 35 and a deep 76-yarder against Wisconsin.”

Rutgers punter Adam Korsak and Oklahoma punter Michael Turk were two guys who really impressed this season, but both have decided to return to amateur football for another year.

#Bears new DB Tavon Young 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/cOMNN7EBt3

— Bears Nation (@BearsNationCHI) April 8, 2022

Tavon Young is a good player.

And a smart signing.

For Ryan Poles, a signing like Young is all about roster options. A healthy Young stabilizes the slot corner role and allows the new GM (and his coach) to give a player like Thomas Graham opportunities outside. Young also provides Poles cover when it comes to the draft; he’ll no longer approach rounds two and three desperate to find an immediate starter in the secondary.