The Bears used to pick up tight ends in bulk, at one point stockpiling 10 of them in the 2020 offseason, and it became yet another punchline about Ryan Pace and Matt Nagy not knowing what they were doing.
But no one makes jokes about coach Ben Johnson and his collection.
It helps Johnson doesn’t have 10. Even in an offense intent on using three tight ends at once, the Bears have just seven on their 90-man roster. But he and general manager Ryan Poles have diverted substantial resources to the position to gather the multidimensional pieces Johnson needs to make his offense a nightmare for opponents.
When veteran Cole Kmet was fairly fresh off signing a $50 million contract extension, the Bears surprised everyone by drafting Colston Loveland 10th overall last year.
Johnson said he’d play them together.
Then the Bears picked Stanford’s Sam Roush with the 69th overall pick — just outside the second round — this year, but not to replace Kmet.
Johnson said he’d play all three together.
It’s very likely he’ll do a lot of that this season, and it’s at the essence of his motto to, “Make the same things look different and different things look the same,” in his play designs. Tight ends can be effective as receivers or run blockers, and using three of them — known as “13 personnel” with one wide receiver and a running back on the field — expands Johnson’s ability to be unpredictable.
It also keeps him at the forefront of what has been an emerging trend led by Rams virtuoso play caller Sean McVay. He used the most three-tight-end sets last season at 330, and the Bears were fifth at 94.
Nobody did it more effectively than McVay, whose Rams had the No. 1 offense and went to the NFC Championship Game after knocking the Bears out of the playoffs. They’ve made a similar investment at the position with Colby Parkinson, Tyler Higbee and Terrance Ferguson.
Johnson hopes to level up now that he is outfitted with premium talent that he mostly selected. Only Kmet predates his arrival, and the Bears bypassed an affordable out in his contract this offseason. There’s no question he’s a Johnson guy.
Kmet has proven capable at every facet of the position. Loveland’s strength is as a receiver, but has shown to be a strong blocker, too. Roush is thought of as an in-line blocking tight end, but his 49 catches for 545 yards as a senior shouldn’t be ignored.
The three of them on the field together gives the Bears eight blockers upfront and automatically signals a run play to the defense, which takes the opponent out of nickel coverage and forces it into its base setup with a combined seven linemen and linebackers.
“When I first got into the NFL 15 years ago, you would [use] two tight ends, two receivers, and most teams would give you base defense,” Johnson said. “Now, more teams than ever are playing nickel … so if you want to continue to attack base defense, there’s just some merit [to playing three tight ends].
“More teams are installing their nickel packages earlier on in camp because they’re in it more often, and so we may want to attack the lesser-used defense if we can. It just gives you flexibility.”
Johnson’s menu with 13 personnel is too vast and varied to fully explore, which is a big part of why it gives defensive coordinators headaches, but it creates two basic effects:
• In the running game, it expands the offensive line by three blockers, which widens the area defenders must cover, and because the defense must respect that tight ends are still receiving threats by keeping at least four defensive backs in coverage, it sets up more double-team blocks to open running lanes.
“It’s less one-on-one, and you really get to hammer the d-line,” right guard Jonah Jackson said with a giant smile.
• In the passing game, it makes play action all the more lethal because the formation strongly signals it’s a run and gives any of the three tight ends a chance to escape downfield. And when a defensive play caller sends in heavier, run-stopping defenders, the offense can shift the tight ends out wide and get one-on-one matchups against players who aren’t fast enough to cover them.
Johnson makes all of that exponentially more difficult to decipher with pre-snap motion, sending an already uncertain defense spiraling even deeper into a guessing game.
“He plays a lot of eye games … with those motions and tight ends and doing stuff some different ways,” new Bears linebacker Devin Bush said Tuesday after a practice in which the Bears worked through quite a bit of 13 personnel. “It’s pretty intriguing.”
Intriguing? Johnson’s adversaries might use words like maddening, perplexing, overwhelming. And the scary thing is last season was only the beginning of it, with Johnson still tweaking the roster and players still learning his scheme. It’s only going to become more sophisticated and potent.
