Bears prepare for new tight end room, same running backs and a CB battle

For the third consecutive year, the Bears enter training camp with the following tight ends: a second-round pick, a high-priced free-agent acquisition, a veteran No. 3.

What’s incredible — and not necessarily in a good way — is that they are three completely different players this year, part of Ryan Pace’s great tight end overhaul of 2020.

Maybe we’ve made too many jokes about it, like we did with kicker last summer, because Matt Nagy seemed to notice.

“Well we heard you, Adam (Jahns), tell us we have like 17 tight ends,” Nagy quipped on Wednesday’s Zoom, “so we’re just trying to take your advice and get down to like three for you soon.”

Gone are Trey Burton, Adam Shaheen and Ben Braunecker (and Bradley Sowell and Dax Raymond). In are Jimmy Graham, Cole Kmet and Demetrius Harris. And a new position coach, Clancy Barone.

Besides the quarterback competition and how the Bears are preparing to mitigate the risk of COVID-19, tight ends got the attention from the bosses as the team begins reporting for training camp.

“It’s an important position, we know that, we understand that,” Nagy said. “So that’s our job, is at the end of the season you evaluate where you’re at, we did that, we made some moves, we like where we’re at right now.”

Evaluating the tight ends room

The March signing (or, splurging) of Graham started the clock on Burton’s release. The addition of Harris and then the selection of Kmet did the same for Shaheen — though, it’s hard to see how Shaheen would’ve made the roster regardless.

Pace said they had been in talks with the Dolphins “for a while” and called the trade of Shaheen to Miami for a conditional seventh-round pick that can become a sixth “a win-win situation.”

“But I think it also goes go back to how we feel about our current tight end room,” Pace said. “We really revamped that with the additions we made. That kind of led both to Braunecker (being released) and the Shaheen trade.”

Now, Pace wouldn’t have had to spend the money on Graham and use the team’s first pick in the draft on Kmet had Burton stayed healthy and been a reliable player, or had Shaheen developed (and also stayed healthy).

Nagy singled out Burton soon after he was hired as a target for the team in 2018, and he did post 569 receiving yards and six touchdowns. But Shaheen was drafted for a different coaching staff. Braunecker was signed for a different coaching staff. The Sowell-to-tight end experiment flopped.

One would hope that the head coach, whose offense requires effective play from at least two tight ends, had a big say in the three additions to this year’s group.

“We’ve got a great group of guys,” Nagy said. “I mean Jimmy coming in here with the experience that he has, I told you he’s got a little chip on his shoulder right now which I like. Demetrius Harris I have a history with from Kansas City so we have a plan with him. We drafted obviously Cole Kmet and then we have a nice group of other guys that we’re excited to see really come in and compete.”

Pace added that the “(J.P.) Holtzes and (Jesper) Horsteds and (Eric) Sauberts” make the tight ends a “really intriguing group.”

“Really intriguing” might be a stretch when we’re talking about the reserves, but there’s no doubt that as much as the offense’s hopes rest on the quarterback, getting adequate production from tight end is paramount. Not to mention these big targets can be a quarterback’s best friend.

Not enough depth at running back?

While the Bears played “Extreme Makeover: Tight End edition,” they did the opposite at running back.

The only new faces in the running backs room are two undrafted rookies in what will be the most difficult year for an undrafted rookie to make the team.

Pace, echoing a sentiment from the combine (though, it’s hard to take pre-free agency and draft comments at face value), rejected the notion that the Bears are thin in the backfield.

“I feel like with David (Montgomery), we’re going to continue to see him progress and we’re really happy with the way that he performed last year,” Pace said. “Definitely arrow up. Tarik (Cohen), everything that we can gather as far as his mental mindset right now, his approach to this season, we’re excited about Tarik. I like his approach.

“You factor in Ryan Nall, who we like, who’s growing here in our organization. So I’m excited about our running back room. I think there’s obviously some new wrinkles this season in regards to Matt, his staff and what they’ll do. So I would disagree. I think it’s a talented room and we like our depth in there.”

Based on the reaction to our 53-man roster projection, fan concern isn’t so much with the top two backs as it is with Nall being the next man up. He has two NFL carries, but it’s not like teams generally boast high-caliber, third-string running backs, and the Bears also have Cordarrelle Patterson. The question arises of what the Bears would do if Montgomery got hurt, since Cohen isn’t going to be a 15-20 carries per game player.

When will the Bears extend Allen Robinson? (Mark Brown / Getty Images)

2020 contract extension vs. 2021 salary cap

It should be Allen Robinson. No one else really qualifies, at least prior to the season. Pace has inked Kyle Long, Akiem Hicks, Charles Leno Jr., Eddie Goldman and Cody Whitehair to extensions before Week 1.

Now with the salary cap set to be adjusted in 2021 to account for financial losses this season, it’s another factor for Pace to consider, and there are several Bears with expensive cap hits next season.

“I think we know what the floor is for the cap in ’21 and once we’re given the parameters from the league in regards to the cap, we’re all operating under the same rules, we get that,” Pace said. “I just have a lot of confidence in Joey Laine and myself and how we’re forecasting and how we’re predicting for the future and I’m confident we’ll work through it. It’s not going to prevent us from doing the things that we want to do.”

Based on that statement, any 2021 cap concerns wouldn’t hinder extending Robinson. One of the benefits of doing it in March was about cap relief for 2020, which isn’t as imperative at this point. However, any deal done with Robinson in August or September would likely be for less money than if he got to free agency — assuming he has another strong season.

How to replace the preseason

Nagy admitted that the 2019 training camp and preseason plan wasn’t a good decision.

“So 2018, we talked about getting calloused,” he said. “We were physical. We got after it pretty good. Live in training camp. Last year we did some live, but we went the other way, right? And not playing a lot of the starters in the preseason. I told you at the end of the year that I didn’t think looking back that was a good decision.”

He probably made the call to treat this preseason differently a long time ago, maybe even during the Week 1 debacle vs. Green Bay, and now there won’t be a preseason, only three weeks of padded practice before the first game week.

As much as Nagy would like to get that “callous” back in camp, he also has to follow the league’s “ramp-up” rules, which prevent the pads from coming on until Aug. 17, and make sure they avoid injuries to players who haven’t had an organized practice since December.

“We have a plan,” Nagy said. “And there’s gonna be live. There’s gonna be tackling. We’re gonna be able to evaluate, it’s just not gonna be on TV in front of a bunch of people at Soldier Field all the time, or wherever we’re playing preseason.

“But it’s gotta be smart. Because this ramp-up period with these players, not knowing where they’ve been 100 percent and what they’ve been doing, that’s where I think the league and the players association have done a really good job at making sure that when they get in here we ramp up the right way. Because as we all know as head coaches, we want to protect these players and be smart. It’s very important that the hamstring injuries, the soft tissue injuries, all those are a whole separate issue from COVID.”

Through all that, Nagy still plans to “freakin’ get after it in this training camp.”

“Mindset-wise, when we’re going and we strap it up and go live and we hit and tackle, there’s gonna be a mindset that we’re gonna be a tough football team,” he said.

Losing Eddie Goldman

Goldman emailed his head coach and then spoke to Nagy in person about his decision to opt out for the 2020 season because of health concerns related to COVID-19.

“We told him we support him, we told him what we have, the education part, we told him what we have here so he knows, and that’s the decision that he decided to make,” Nagy said. “… He’s a part of our family and this is what he chose to do and we just gotta make sure on our end now that we don’t flinch and we move forward. But he did it the right way and feel good about where we’re at and fully support him.”

Losing Eddie Goldman was a blow for the Bears, but at least it was at a deep position. (Chuck Cook / USA Today)

Pace described the reaction to losing someone like Goldman — he’s a great and integral player, but at a position where the Bears are fortunate to have depth. The GM also left open the option of adding someone to the D-line at some point.

“Obviously he is a really important part of our defense and a really good young player for us,” he said. “But I think this is when we talk about the depth that we have built up. Especially on the defensive line when you talk about guys like Roy Robertson-Harris, Bilal (Nichols), John Jenkins and Brent Urban and then you factor in Jay Rodgers who I think is an outstanding coach, it gives us a lot of confidence with that position. And then look, you know we are always looking at ways to improve our team and our roster. There is a lot of avenues for us to do that, it doesn’t mean it has to be right now. But there will be opportunities ahead of us as well.”

Updated cornerback competition

Tre Roberson, the former college quarterback who was a standout in the CFL at cornerback, got a lot of hype in January. He had several NFL offers but chose the Bears to partake in the battle to start opposite Kyle Fuller.

In the offseason, though, Roberson broke his foot and was waived. He reverts to the Bears’ non-football injury list, so he is still technically part of the team.

“That was disappointing,” Pace said. “He’s disappointed. He broke his foot this offseason training, and we’re going to work through that with him. He’s a good young player – someone we scouted heavily in the CFL. It’s just an unfortunate injury, but something we can recover from and we’re going to work through him on that process.”

It’s brutal timing for Roberson in his return to the NFL — he spent some time with the Vikings in 2016. He won’t get to partake in the one position battle that Pace singled out (besides quarterback) in Wednesday’s call.

“Corner comes to mind right away,” he said. “There’s a lot of young, intriguing players there from the (Kevin) Tolivers and the Artie Burns, and the Jaylon Johnsons that will be really intriguing and fascinating to let this thing play out.”

(Photo: Patrick Gorski / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)