Bears Release All Players Not Tight Ends to Make Space For More Tight Ends
CHICAGO, IL — After taking TE Cole Kmet in the first round of the 2020 NFL Draft, the Chicago Bears now have ten tight ends on their roster. Tight ends make up a whooping 19% of their 53 man roster. Chicago had some of the least productive tight ends in the league last season and head coach Matt Nagy has said he would like to see significant positional improvement in the upcoming season. While the logical assumption is that only 3-4 of these TEs will be on the team’s roster for the opening game of the season, many around the league are not so sure. An anonymous member of the Viking’s inter-divisional due diligence team had this to say about Chicago’s roster building strategy:
“They’ve been quietly signing tight ends for a while now. Last time I checked, Chicago had five and I thought that was a bit much. They’ve since doubled that number. It’s easy to say ‘Oh they’ve got ten now, surely they won’t sign any more, they’ll probably drop a couple’ but this isn’t a rational franchise. This is the same organization that traded up to draft one-year UNC starter Mitchell Trubisky over Patrick Mahomes, Deshaun Watson, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Marlon Humphrey and Chris Godwin. I also don’t know if the Bears have shown any indication that they plan on decreasing their tight end ranks. In fact, they’ve only shown bullish tendencies in the TE free agency market. Recklessly bullish I’d say. I don’t know what they’re up to, but I’d say they’re preparing for a big move here in the next couple of days.”
And on Sunday afternoon, the big move predicted by the Vikings’ staffer came through. The Chicago Bears released all 43 of their non-tight end players, including 9 of their newly drafted players. This move gives the Bears massive flexibility with roster construction and cap space, which the organization will use to sign “as many more tight ends as possible.” But don’t let Matt Nagy hear you call it a rebuild. The Bears coach was dismissive of the media’s attempt to label his roster shakeup as rebuild, preferring instead to call it a “renovation.” Nagy went on to explain the reasoning behind his dramatic roster reconstruction:
“Tight ends are the perfect combination of speed, power, and athleticism. They are the most versatile players on the field in the modern NFL. Instead of asking me why, I want you to ask yourself why not? If you had to bet on either the Chiefs’ starting offense or a defense consisting of 11 Rob Gronkowskis, which one would you pick? How many times could Mahomes get hit by my Gronkowskis before being carted off the field? Roughly one and a half times is the number researchers at the University of Chicago Medical School came up with when I asked them that hypothetical question. And those students are going to be doctors someday, real doctors, with stethoscopes, clipboards, and an upper middle class lifestyle. Look, we can debate this all we want, but I’ve got expert opinions on speed dial and they say the numbers don’t look too good for Kansas City. So what does that say about the rest of the league? I’d say I’m putting the rest of the National Football League on notice. Watch out for Chicago next season.”
Sources close to the Bears say the team is planning on running an 11 TE variation of the single wing called the “SOS” which is short for “Sixteen and O or O and Sixteen.” The offense will primarily feature a bruising rushing attack spearheaded by pre-WW2 offensive novelties such as pulling guards and double team blocks. However, Nagy has engineered a new wrinkle to the single wind that he cryptically calls the “tight end pitch.” It remains to be seen what this entails. The SOS depends on the offense’s ability to consistently pick up 2-4 yards a play without the threat of a passing game.
On the other side of the ball, the Bear’s defense will run an 11 TE set called the Box and One, a take on the popular zone-man hybrid defense in basketball. In the Box and One, ten men on the field are responsible for covering a portion of the field referred to as a “zone.” The eleventh man is called “the enforcer” and is responsible for hitting the quarterback on every play. The strategy behind the defense is to willingly give up short to medium (and sometimes long) yardage plays early in the game and give your enforcer ample opportunities to pummel the opposing quarterback. A modern take on the classic “bend but do not break” defensive philosophy. If all goes according to plan, the enforcer will knock out the starting quarterback before the opposing team obtains an insurmountable lead. With the opposing team’s backup quarterback in, the anemic SOS offense will have a chance to close the scoring gap and throttle the opposing team with time of possession.
It remains to be seen if these dramatic changes will be enough to propel Chicago to the top of the NFC North standings.
