Bear Digest

Is Most Overrated Bears Player Even Someone Being Rated?

Analysis: One website has revealed its view of each NFL team's most overrated player and in this case it's not someone who has been in a Bears uniform for long.

Gene Chamberlain

Kevin Byard has been named the most overrated Bears player but seems a player well down the list of potential candidates.
Kevin Byard has been named the most overrated Bears player but seems a player well down the list of potential candidates. / Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports
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The label overrated normally gets fixed to players with accomplishments who earned great acclaim while still coming up short in wins.

Or it can go to someone who just keeps getting great ink.

For that reason it seems a bit odd to learn who one website considers the most overrated Bears player.

It's not Montez Sweat, who almost singularly has been credited with sacks, forcing quarterbacks into interceptions and turning around a defense. That's because he really has done all of those things.

It would be easy to fix the title to DJ Moore except no one apparently likes giving him credit for anything or he'd be in the Pro Bowl after a 1,364-yard season while chasing Justin Fields passes.

And more than anyone, it would really be easy to give it to Caleb Williams because he hasn't done anything yet but is being hailed as the Bears' savior. Every new Bears quarterback gets to wear this mantel for a while. Giving it to him lacks originality but also it could prove he actually is the savior of the franchise.

The website Pro Football Network has fixed the title of Bears most overrated player to safety Kevin Byard, of all people.

Perhaps it's because Pro Football Focus has graded Byard 12th among all safeties, or because he struggled last year in Philadelphia, but the free agent the Bears signed for $15 million over two years is their most overrated player.

"Byard was acquired via trade by the Philadelphia Eagles last season and failed to live up to expectations, given his career accolades," wrote PFN's Anthony DiBona. "The 30-year-old safety looked a step slow at times and didn’t showcase the instincts that he often showed with the Tennessee Titans."

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The key there was moving teams at midseason. It's not easy for a player after 7 1/2 seasons in the same place to pick up in the middle of the fight and take it elsewhere without knowing the scheme. Sweat did it with the Bears but it's easier for a defensive lineman than a safety.

If a safety who hasn't played a down for you, is only paid half of what the previous safety received and was traded and then cut by a team is your most overrated player, then maybe you're actually headed to a Super Bowl. Either that or you've got to get media members who are a bit tougher on the players.

Few other media sources rate Byard highly.

CBS Sports called his signing one of the worst free agent signings of the offseason. So maybe he's not overrated after all.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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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.

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