Bear Digest

How Rome Odunze Can Make Triplet Receivers Concept Work

Analysis: Rome Odunze should be of particular interest to fantasy football owners because one way he can fit as a rookie in Bears offense is as a big-time red zone TD producer.

Gene Chamberlain

Rome Odunze's athletic and receiving ability has been apparent throughout Bears offseason work with rookies or veterans, say coaches.
Rome Odunze's athletic and receiving ability has been apparent throughout Bears offseason work with rookies or veterans, say coaches. / David Banks-USA TODAY Sports
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It's a tricky thing to add the third potential star at wide receiver to a team.

Expectations rarely sync up with production for all three when this happens, but the truth is it happens so little because teams usually have more draft needs to address than to continue adding wide receiver talent.

The Dallas Cowboys did it when they drafted CeeDee Lamb into a receiver group with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup. They also had Cedrick Wilson then. The end result was Lamb became a superstar and the others either faded or suffered injuries. Cooper has had 1,100-yard seasons receiving four of the last five but that one year when Lamb arrived he had just 865 yards and then was traded to Cleveland. 

The Chargers attempted this twice in the last three years when they already had Mike Williams and Keenan Allen, but Josh Palmer and then Quentin Johnston failed to come up with bigger numbers as rookies. Palmer was only a third-round pick so this could have been expected.

It happened again last year with a team connected to the Bears. Bears offensive coordinator Shane Waldron oversaw the addition of Jaxon Smith-Njigba to the Seattle receiver corps with Tyler Lockett and D.K. Metcalf in it.

Waldron's results were better than some other attempts at wide receiver triplets, as Smith-Njigba made 63 receptions but for only 628 yards and four TDs. Metcalf had his usual 1,114 yards but suffered a decline in catches from an average of 76 to 66. Lockett's catches didn't decline much but his yardage (894) represented his lowest total in seven years. He just turned 30 years old then, so age wasn't a factor.

With rookie Rome Odunze now added into a Bears mix including DJ Moore and Keenan Allen, the past models really are useless. Too many things can enter into the equation.

For example, with Dallas injuries hit and Gallup went out, as Lamb asserted himself. The same thing happened to the Chargers with Williams but neither Palmer nor Johnston stepped up last year. Allen had to do the workload of a 25-year-old receiver.

There is Odunze's great talent countered by the talent of two top, established NFL receivers, one of them in his prime and the other joining a new team for the first time in his 30s. There is the balance of two good receivers at tight end and a running back with receiving abilities. And then there is the wild card in all of it -- rookie quarterback Caleb Williams.

History provides little reference. It's a unique situation, at least in recent NFL memory. Other factors do enter into it, like Waldron's offense emphasizing all the receivers learning all the positions. All of them can run all the routes, or should be able to do it.

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A bright rookie like Odunze could fit in like a veteran and let the team prepare for situations when a player might go out.

"He's really picking this offense up as a conceptual learner," Waldron said of Odunze. "I think it only helps for down the road in the regular season when you start moving guys around."

Allen has averaged over 97 catches for the last seven years but in the last four has 21 missed games, including 11 since he reached his 30s.

"I would say that he (Allen) is a guy that's been in several offenses, so he's had to adapt and adjust," Bears coach Matt Eberflus said. "He's played X and he's played Z and he's played F and he's been on the move and he's done a lot of things."

Translated: Playing with Odunze and Moore is much less likely to affect Allen than it would other younger or less adaptable receivers.

Moore just turned 27 and is at a point in his career when really big numbers like he had last year can be expected.

The tight ends and backs are going to pose inviting targets for a learning rookie, and Williams already in college had used them well in the passing game.

Too many forces are at work and there are too few footballs to expect huge numbers as a rookie from Odunze, although it should become apparent the groundwork is put in place for this in future seasons.

Odunze has not practiced like a rookie who will quietly defer to veterans all season.

"Rome really impressed us in terms of his ability to grab concepts and really execute out there for sure," Eberflus said, when asked for a player who has really jumped out at him throughout offseason work. "But again, there's a lot of guys that impressed us."

One area where neither Moore nor Allen produced prodigious numbers has been the red zone. Moore never had more than four TD catches until his final season at Carolina. Allen averaged 5.4 TDs a season with Justin Herbert and Philip Rivers as passers in high-volume passing attacks.

Odunze had 13 TD catches last year at Washington among his 92 total receptions. He could become a good rookie friend to the fantasy football crowd, which craves TD catches above all else. SI's fantasy expert, Michael Fabiano, has a much more optimistic view of Odunze's rookie year but the reality of too many mouths to feed should take a toll on his overall numbers. He'll get his when it counts.

"I think my name's gonna be called in those big moments," Odunze said. "I feel confident in that, and I think I have the confidence and the ability to make those plays when they come up and when my name is called."

The logic of the draft's ninth pick being a key red zone threat and TD producer as an NFL rookie to complement veteran catch and yardage masters is an easy scenario to see developing. Odunze's role would expand from this niche thereafter.

Rome Odunze's 2024 Fantasy Projection

Vitals: 6-foot-3, 212 pounds, rookie season.

College Career: 214 receptions, 3,272 yards, 24 TDs, 15.3 yards per catch.  

2023: 92 receptions, 1,640 yards, 13 TDs, 17.8 yards per catch.

2024 Bears On SI Projection: 56 receptions, 699 yards, 82 targets, 12.5 yards per catch, 9 TDs, 68.3% catch rate.

Michael Fabiano's SI Fantasy Ranking: No. 20 among all wide receivers.

DJ MOORE'S BEARS ON SI 2024 FANTASY PROJECTION

KEENAN ALLEN'S BEARS ON SI 2024 FANTASY PROJECTION

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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.