Five Biggest Questions
1. Who will win the starting QB job, and will it matter?
2. Can David Montgomery be a reliable RB2?
3. Will Allen Robinson be a WR1?
4. Can Anthony Miller be a WR4+?
5. Is Jimmy Graham season-long bench fodder?
The morning after the Bears' abysmal performance last Week 1 against the Packers, I wrote, "While we can't project an entire season on it, it's fairly easy to see this team finishing 8-8 at best." There was a lot of pushback--possibly from Chicago fans--that this was just one game, and not indicative of how good this team could be. But after a full offseason preparing for one of the biggest games of the year, the Bears looked awful on offense. Looking at their remaining schedule, once seemingly winnable games no longer looked very winnable.
Hindsight is 20/20. And sometimes it's laughable. At the 2017 draft, Chicago famously jettisoned four draft picks to trade up one spot--yes, one spot--to land a supposed franchise quarterback. It's not Mitch Trubisky's fault that other teams quickly scooped up Christian McCaffrey, Patrick Mahomes, DeShaun Watson, and plenty of other high-impact rookies. But the spotlight is deservedly on him after a season where he regressed across all major categories. His once impressive running game was almost non-existent. And now the perennially overrated Nick Foles will compete for the starting job. I still believe Trubisky (QB-35 ADP) is the better bet to start over Foles (QB-34), and also would make the Bears more competitive given his (I strongly believe) higher upside. But let's face it: This is not what this franchise imagined back in 2017.
Fantasy managers who reached for David Montgomery last summer saw a true breakout candidate--a rookie with the talent and the opportunity to outperform expectations. Averaging only 3.7 YPC and netting only 185 receiving yards, Montgomery was viewed mostly as a bust. But here's some perspective: he earned 267 touches, eclipsed 1,000 total yards, and scored seven times. I'm buying him at his bargain RB-25 ADP because he probably has nowhere to go but up. When he was fed 16+ touches, the Bears were 6-1. That means when he wasn't, his team was 2-7. In fairness, as Matt Naus suggested to me, isn't it obvious that Montgomery would get more touches while running out the clock? So I looked that up, and found that only a third of Montgomery's fourth-quarter touches came while trailing.
But here's the key point: only 39% of his rushing attempts came in the first half. Even when removing all of his attempts-while-leading-in-the-fourth, he still did more work in the second half than in the first. Why? And more importantly, what if he's handed a bigger early-game role this year? He averaged only 5.9 carries in the first half last year. 5.9! If this offense has any hope of truly thriving, the running game has to be established. Montgomery is too good to be a chronic decoy. I'm expecting 325+ touches and a top-16 finish. Meanwhile, Tarik Cohen (RB-37) is a great bet to exceed his projections, though I'm expected Montgomery to eat a bit more into Cohen's aerial game.
After three frustrating seasons since his 2015 breakout, Allen Robinson returned to glory with a 98/1,147/7 line. For his career he's averaging 14.6 fantasy points per game--essentially high-WR2 production. And he's done this despite catching balls only from Chad Henne, Blake Bortles, Mitch Trubisky, and Chase Daniel. His WR-10 ADP is troublesome because of three factors: the murky QB situation, the rise of Montgomery, and Anthony Miller's likely development. While I want to believe in Robinson, I think 10th is his ceiling, not his floor, that he'll finish squarely in the WR2 camp. Meanwhile, Miller (WR-55) is screaming bargain potential. Top 35 is realistic. In deeper leagues he'll be a terrific late-round find. Elsewhere, Riley Ridley (WR-121) and Ted Ginn (WR-372) will compete for some of ex-Bear Taylor Gabriel's lost targets. Keep in mind, Chicago averaged only 206 passing yards per game in 2019--25th best in the league--and there's little reason to believe this year's passing attack can support more than two receivers.
Finally, the once great Jimmy Graham makes me sad. What would 2013 Jimmy Graham say if he learned seven years later he'd be the preseason 30th ranked TE? Now 33 years old (and 53 in Jimmy Graham years), he's staring at a 40/350/5 line at best, and something much, much worse at worst. Since the Trey Burton and Adam Shaheen experiments didn't pan out, we're now left waiting for rookie Cole Kmet to develop. I'm no GM, but wow, this franchise has wasted a lot of money on sub-par tight ends.