Bear Digest

Cole Kmet Sees Successful Offense Despite Vanilla Preseason Look

The tight ends catching passes was one aspect and the overall flow of plays in the preseason opener made it apparent how the Bears' new offense can function.

Gene Chamberlain

Tight end Tommy Sweeney signals first down after a catch in Thursday's preseason opener. Tight ends had six catches.
Tight end Tommy Sweeney signals first down after a catch in Thursday's preseason opener. Tight ends had six catches. / Kevin Whitlock / Massillon Independent / USA TODAY NETWORK
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One mystery of the Shane Waldron offense appears to have been revealed with satisfactory results.

That would be how they plan to use the tight ends.

The first preseason game probably can't say as much for it as the practices on a daily basis but did provide insight into how the offense will flow. Tight end Cole Kmet sees now how it can all work.

"I think Shane, when we were watching the game the other day, just like how he flowed plays together, it made a lot of sense to me and how he was calling the plays. So that was really cool to see," Kmet said.

It was difficult coming in to envision how Waldron would find enough work for tight ends in the attack considering they have three wide receivers the caliber of Rome Odunze, Keenan Allen and DJ Moore. And in his last year at Seattle, Waldron had three similar wide receivers in DK Metcalf, Tyler Lockett and Jaxon Smith-Njigba but tight ends had 47 fewer targets than in the previous season when he had two strong wide receivers.

On Thursday at Canton, tight ends had six of the 19 targets the Bears had, according to NFL game statistics. And it was a game less than three-quarters complete.

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 "Yeah, I mean, it's also very vanilla," Kmet acknowledged. "You're going against a team we are playing I think in Week 2. They are probably playing their base stuff, we are running our base stuff. But it was cool to see all those guys do really well."

Probably of more importance in the game and with regards the overall attack was the way the Bears ran the ball. Tight ends have big roles in blocking for the run and in training camp the success or failure doesn't always seem apparent because of the lack of contact. But full speed football made it more clear to the naked eye. The Bears averaged 5.7 yards for 15 carries.

"Well I think I've been really happy with our run game in camp and I know you don't really get to see, maybe from (media's) perspective just because it's not to-the-ground tackling, so you guys don't see what we're kind of seeing on the film room," Kmet said. "But I've been really happy with that. I think that's clicked really well."

Now it's a matter of the first-team offense getting those in-game reps to show they're able to accomplish what they want without all the presnap penalties and cadence issues they've had at training camp.

"Well, execution is No. 1," Kmet said. "Guys going to the right spots, lining up in the right areas, breaking the huddle correctly. So all of those things are really important and that's kind of what we are looking at right now, operationally."

The bottom line, though, is QB Caleb Williams didn't play in the game and it's how he operates the offense that will determine the way it eventually succeeds. They had the cadence issues when he played quarterback.

"I think we've had some hiccups here the past couple of weeks with that, but I think when you get to post-snap stuff, Caleb has been pretty special," Kmet said. "You can see why he's the No. 1 overall pick when he's been making some of these throws he's making.

"We just have to continue to hone in on this operation and make sure we get our cadences right, the snap counts, lining up correctly, all those things. So if we get to that point and get to the post-snap stuff, I think we will be good."

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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.