A great concern has circulated about how the Bears offense simply lacks enough footballs for all the receivers Ryan Poles has brought to this team.
It's a claim made by critics of Poles' rebuild, and also by fantasy football analysts who warn against selecting or trading for Chicago wide receivers and tight ends because there are too many potential targets for Caleb Williams to pile up big numbers with more than a few.
One player who seems most likely to have his numbers decline is tight end Gerald Everett, as the Bears already had a 70-catch tight end. Then they not only added Everett but two wide receivers and a running back capable of 40 to 55 receptions in D'Andre Swift.
All of this might be true if the Bears were running the Luke Getsy offense they did last year and in 2022. This is Shane Waldron's offense, not Luke Getsy's.
The Bears are going to pass the ball more. As the volume of attempts goes up, there will be receiving opportunities for all.
It's a sort of rising tide floats all receivers philosophy and Everett is confident he'll contribute mainly because he has confidence in Waldron after playing for him in Los Angeles and Seattle.
"Just history, I've had history with Shane with the Rams and Seahawks," Everett said. "I've been productive every year in the league. I don't see that stopping any time soon.
"I have to be optimistic, especially with Shane at the helm of things."
It's not going to be football as the Bears fans have known it. No one plays football the way the Bears have known it the last two years, if not for a big portion of the previous decade.
They threw the ball only 890 times in the last two seasons, the fewest passes by any team. The year before, in Justin Fields' first year as Matt Nagy's QB, they threw 495 times. This was next to last.
In 2022, their 377 passes were the smallest ratio of pass attempts to runs of any team since the 2004 Pittsburgh Steelers. The midpoint for pass attempts, a dividing line between top half of the league and bottom half, for that year was 577 attempts. They Bears were more than 200 throws below the middle of the league.
This has been a problem in Chicago virtually every year since the Marc Trestman era ended, with the exception of 2020 when Matt Nagy's team was eighth in pass attempts (614) and 2019 when they were 14th (580).
Waldron came to Seattle with a Rams pedigree for passing and failed miserably at getting a higher volume of throws, with 495 passes in 2021. They were 31st in the NFL with that total. He quickly corrected this and they got into the middle of the league the next two years, at 15th and 17th, with 573 and 575 throws.
A balanced attack should at least be in the middle somewhere and Waldron has talked extensively about achieving balance.
In fact, throwing a little more than balance might be better considering all the targets who want and can do something with the ball.
"In this business, as you know, everybody is talented, everybody gets paid," Everett said. "So we're just trying to build something here special and build off what they did last year."
They're just not planning to do it the same way they did it last year.
Gerald Everett at a Glance
Vitals: 6-foot-3, 250 pounds, eighth season.
Career: 284 receptions, 424 targets, 2,833 yards, 19 TDs, 10.0 yards per catch, 67% catch rate.
2023: 51 receptions, 70 targets, 411 yards, 3 TDs, 8.1 yards per catch, 72.9% catch rate.
2024 Bears On SI Projection: 38 receptions, 52 targets 370 yards, 2 TDs, 9.7 yards per catch, 73.1 catch rate.
Fantasy Points: 2023 111.1 DraftKings, 85.6 FanDual, 60.1 standard scoring; career 99.5 DraftKings, 78.2 FanDual, 57.9 standard scoring.
Bears Pass Attempts Per Season
2015: 513 attempts, ranked 25th
2016: 559 attempts, 22nd
2017: 473 attempts, 32nd (last)
2018: 512 attempts 24th (tied)
2019: 580 attempts, 14th
2020: 614 attempts, 8th
2021: 495 attempts, 31st
2022: 377 attempts, 32nd (last)
2023: 513 attempts, 27th
