He doesn’t. End of article.
I’m kidding.
We’ve been spending the week looking at the Bears’ draft picks and how it impacts the room and the future of the room. We talked about the lack of additions on the defensive line, we’ve talked about the cornerback room, and we’ve talked about the linebacker room. Let’s now talk about the tight ends.
When the Bears drafted Sam Roush with the 69th pick, I think it surprised a lot of Bears fans. After all, they spent the 10th overall pick on Colston Loveland, who
looks like a future star, and they still have veteran Cole Kmet on the roster, who seems entrenched as their inline tight end who will be featured in 12 and 13 personnel.
When Roush was selected, it was no surprise here. I expected the Bears to take a tight end on day three. There was some surprise that it was on day two, but when you know how important the tight end is to Ben Johnson’s offense and what he wants to do, it really isn’t a surprise at all.
For this season, Roush replaces Durham Smythe. He will be the third tight end on the team and allow the Bears to run 13 personnel, something they did frequently and effectively the last couple of months of the season last year.
Where Kmet and Roush are interesting is down the line. I think we all expect Loveland to be the Bears’ featured tight end in the passing game, and he certainly is good enough as a blocker as well. But we know Ben will want to continue to feature 12 and 13 personnel in his offense, so how does that impact Kmet?
How I would play this, if I were the Bears, I would tack on two more years onto Cole Kmet’s contract. He probably shouldn’t be too expensive to do that, and what you would be doing is giving Kmet enough guaranteed money to assure him a roster spot for two seasons, and most likely three.
You would have Kmet under contract for all four years of Roush’s rookie deal, and you would have him under contract for his age-30 season.
At that point, you’ll know exactly what you have at tight end. Loveland will be paid as an elite tight end, so you won’t have a ton of money to utilize for your other TE position. Did Roush develop into a good pass-catching target? If he did, you release Cole Kmet after the 2028 season and feature Roush as the team’s TE2 in the final year of his rookie contract and see what you have. If Roush comes on strong and you have 3 viable tight ends together for 2 to 3 seasons, all the better for Ben Johnson to utilize.
I have a hard time imagining that Roush will be worse than a solid blocking third tight end. If he is only that, that certainly won’t have been worth a third-round pick, but he will still be a usable player. At that point, you can decide if you want to keep Kmet around for a couple more years in his 30s, and if you do want to keep Roush around, he will be very affordable. If he’s only a third blocking TE, he probably won’t get more than a few million per year.
Roush was not selected, in my opinion, as Cole Kmet’s replacement. In 2026, he’s Smythe’s replacement, and hopefully, the Bears have options for dynamic 13 personnel in 2027 and 2028, and even if they have an injury, it still gives them two viable tight ends to run 12 personnel. If Roush develops into a passcatcher and a legit TE2, the earliest we will see him replace Cole Kmet is 2028, possibly not until 2029, and that is nothing but good news for Ben Johnson and the offense.
