Bear Digest

Cole Kmet: Bears Need to Quit Cheating Themselves at Practice

The Bears might be shorting themselves individually when it comes to practice or in conditioning and tight end Cole Kmet thinks everyone needs to assess their work habits.

Gene Chamberlain

Cole Kmet leaves the field in London feeling a little more upbeat than he and teammates felt Sunday in Washington.
Cole Kmet leaves the field in London feeling a little more upbeat than he and teammates felt Sunday in Washington. / Peter van den Berg-Imagn Images
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Every week it seems Matt Eberflus on Friday talks about what a great week of practices it's been.

It's easy to question the veracity of these claims, or else the value of the practice, when things happen like they did to the Bears in Sunday's loss.

Bears tight end Cole Kmet wasn't specifically pointing fingers of blame at anyone but said he sees poor habits done "in the dark," as a problem for the team unless everyone conforms to the need to give all-out effort every day at practice.

Using the term "in the dark" no doubt raises eyebrows but Kmet's explanation is both plausible and essentially common knowledge. His comment was explained as more of a warning than finger pointing but it is enough to make someone wonder if he did see specific examples and didn't want to point it out, because otherwise why even say it?

Bottom line is cheating themselves in practice or the weight room also cheats the team.

"We had examples of that throughout the game and quite frankly throughout the week of practice this past week where there's moments where maybe some guys lay off here and there," Kmet. "Those are the type of things that can happen when you do that for just a split second.

"It doesn't always come to bite you in the butt, but when it does, it hurts. And that's the unfortunate (part) and I would also say beauty of this game is that you disrespect it in a certain way and it will come to haunt you in some form or fashion."

The disrespect phrase is also alarming,

"Yeah, it's more of a general thing," Kmet said. "I'm not necessarily ... and this is all things done in the dark, things that only you know personally. Like, if you're in the weight room, are you doing all six reps or are you doing five reps and getting out of there? When you're on the field, are you hitting the jugs after practice? Are you doing this? Is your footwork correct in the walkthrough?

"Just those little things that can't necessarily always be addressed by a coach or another teammate, but things that you do in the dark that really come to fruition on game day. And I think that's what respecting the game is, and if you relentlessly respect the game, I think you'll get the results that you want. And unfortunately if you get caught disrespecting the game in some form or fashion, it does come to get you at some point."

Kmet intended the remark as a warning and not a critique of anyone specifically.

"Well I think it's first reminding everybody that we're all pulling in the same direction," Kmet said. "We don't want anybody pulling against each other, we're all pulling in the same direction.

"But coming with that we understand that there's an accountability aspect with that. I think it starts first individually, kinda what I was talking about earlier with what you do in the dark and how you operate when nobody's looking and what you do off the field, what are you doing in the weight room, how are you. All of those things lead into Sunday and all of those things go into respecting the game."

It's putting good ingredients into the recipe to get something good at the end.

"So I think starting individually, that's important, having individual accountability is big, and that's a hard thing to have, quite frankly," Kmet said. "You've gotta be able to look inwardly all the time and have that individual accountability. And then going in your (position) rooms.

"For us, for me in the tight end room, we want to be the best tight end room in the league. We want to be the guys when you look on tape that are doing our jobs consistently, doing what we gotta do, play in and play out, and doing things the right way and that we're leading by example in that direction. So I think guys across the leadership and the captains that are in those rooms, it's just going to be on us to lead those guys and set the standard in those rooms and let everybody else follow."

Kmet suggested Stevenson's carelessness at the end of the game was misdirected energy, but the second-year cornerback knows this.

"So I think it's a learning experience for everybody," Kmet said. "We all play with a lot of passion. Tyrique plays with a lot of passion, and we all love him for that.

"But there's definitely a respect level of the game and knowing that you've got to finish it out until those double zeros hit the clock."

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.