Why Bears May Not Need a Trade with Cole Kmet Going on Season-Ending IR

Replacing injured tight end Cole Kmet is difficult for the Bears from a physical and emotional standpoint.

Kmet is being placed on season-ending injured reserve with his knee injury suffered Thursday, according to Ben Johnson in his Friday press conference.

They've often referred to Kmet as the heart of the team because he has been with the team the longest, plus he is a Chicago area native.

"He's Chicago. He's been here his whole life," Johnson said. "It stinks."

Someone must fill in and it would seem the Bears are unlikely to be looking to trade for a tight end, unless they can find one with all-purpose skills who is available for a late draft pick.

They do have Stephen Carlson available on the practice squad to move up and assist Colston Loveland and Sam Roush. They also have Qadir Ismail. Carlson would be an obvious choice for promotion and as an experienced NFL player who has been with the team for four years there would be no need for him to learn the offense.

"We've been very pleased with the improvement he's made over the first seven weeks," Johnson said of Roush. "There's a high likelihood that his rep count is going to go up."

The 29-year-old former Browns tight end has been with the Bears, on the practice squad mostly, since May of 2023, but has never been targeted with a pass in the regular season. He has been in three Bears games, two last year and one in 2023. However, he played 25 games with seven starts and caught six passes for 62 yards with Cleveland in 2019 and 2020 after coming out of Princeton as an undrafted free agent.

He's had 16 catches for 156 yards over the last four preseasons, so they know he has that ability to handle this end. The blocking might not be what they got from Kmet or either of the other two tight ends. Kmet had been enjoying a strong blocking season with Pro Football Focus grading him 14th among 124 tight ends in the league as a run blocker. Colston Loveland, who was strong as a rookie, hasn't been far behind Kmet as a run blocker in 28th of the 124.

Perhaps the suprising part of this for Bears fans who had been condemning Roush after his missed block on field goal unit may have cost them the Vikings game is the fact he is graded 21st out of 124 as a run blocker by PFF. So he's having an outstanding start as a blocker despite fan and media criticism. Much of the credit for getting these players working within the scheme must go to Jim Dray, their tight ends coach.

Ismail is more a receiving tight end who is 6-6, 232 pounds and almost the size of a wide receiver more than a tight end.

Practice squad injured?

There is another option available on the practice squad injured list. Undrafted Iowa rookie Hayden Large is on the practice squad injured list after suffering what was called a core injury in training camp.

Whether he's healed from his is uncertain, but players on the practice squad injured list have been available for return to the practice squad or 53-man roster since 2022. They have the same rules as any other player. There would be a 21-day window to reinstate him. However, his injury status now isn't certain. Large made the practice squad mainly because of his blocking.

"There's a lot of solutions out there to make sure that we can still run the ball, pass-protect, and our route running I think we're still going to be OK," Johnson said. "I'm not discounting the impact of a guy like Cole has. Like I've said before, he's one of the glue guys with a huge amount of dependability from the coaching staff, from his teammates. We knew what we were going to get from that player every time he took the field and he was consistently one of the highest graded players on our offense week-in and week-out.

"He will be missed, no question about it. But in terms of what we do, it's not going to change a whole lot."

Johnson said this is an option for them but also mentioned the other practice squad tight ends as possibilities.

They also have tight end Nikola Kalinic on the practice squad injury list but he had a knee injury. Also, without making a trade they could claim James Mitchell from the Dallas practice squad. He made 13 catches, including a touchdown, for Detroit in three seasons under Johnson.

Carlson had shown promise in Cleveland but a knee injury had halted his career. Now, perhaps a knee injury is opening the way for him to contribute.

Still, with tight end being a position where injuries often occur because of the physicality and athleticism involved, and with some of their players at the position owning pasts involving injuries, they need to be looking on the waiver wire or even trade market to add more depth.

Whatever they do, Johnson again stressed they are not changing their offense without Kmet.

"We trained all of our tight ends to be able to do all of the jobs and so I don't really see us changing who we are or what we do as a result of that," Johnson said.