5 explanations for Bears tight end Cole Kmet’s disappointing start to 2020

Through Week 5, here’s the NFL’s rookie tight end receiving leaderboard:

Harrison Bryant (4^th round, Browns): 11 targets, 7 catches, 59 yards, 1 TD
Adam Trautman (3^rd round, Saints): 3 targets, 3 catches, 34 yards
Cole Kmet (2^nd round, Bears): 3 targets, 1 catch, 12 yards

Four other players, including Packers third-rounder Josiah Deguara, are tied with Kmet in having one catch.

2020 was considered a weak draft class for tight ends, which probably makes an impact here. But last year, through the first five weeks of the season, the top four rookie tight ends were:

Noah Fant (1^st round, Broncos): 16 targets, 12 catches, 136 yards, 1 TD
T.J. Hockenson (1^st round, Lions): 19 targets, 11 catches, 166 yards, 2 TDs
Dawson Knox (3^rd round, Bills): 18 targets, 10 catches, 156 yards, 1 TD
Foster Moreau (4^th round, Raiders): 11 targets, 10 catches, 97 yards, 1 TD

So while rookie tight ends usually face a steep learning curve, a handful of them usually break through to make an early – if still limited – impact in the passing game. And it’s not just first round picks.

But check out the rookie tight end learderboard for the entire 2011 season, which like 2020 did not have an offseason program for rookies to build a foundation:

Kyle Rudolph (2^nd round, Vikings): 39 targets, 26 receptions, 249 yards, 3 TDs
Rob Housler (3^rd round, Cardinals): 26 targets, 12 receptions, 133 yards
Jordan Cameron (4^th round, Browns): 13 targets, 6 receptions, 33 yards
Colin Cochart (undrafted, Bengals) 9 targets, 4 catches, 44 yards, 1 TD
Lee Smith (5^th round, Bills): 4 targets, 4 catches, 11 yards
Virgil Green (7^th round, Broncos): 5 targets, 3 catches, 24 yards
Kevin Brock (undrafted, Bills): 2 targets, 2 catches, 27 yards
Five players with one catch

One of those players with one catch was Julius Thomas, a fourth-round pick of the Denver Broncos, whose tight ends coach was Clancy Barone – who’s now the Bears’ tight ends coach.

“The worst thing you can do with any young player is just assume that that is not important, to grow and have time to get their feet wet and develop,” Barone said. “And that’s hard. I think back to when I had Julius Thomas in Denver. Julius came in and he went on to break Shannon Sharpe’s single-season touchdown record with the Broncos. Not once, but he broke it twice. In his first 24 starts in the NFL, he had 24 touchdowns. But it took him three years to get that first NFL start. People don’t remember that.”

“It’s not gonna take Cole three years to get his first NFL touchdown, I can promise you that.”

Kmet’s played 104 snaps through five games. That doesn’t seem like a lot. Or maybe it’s exactly where Kmet should be.

“(It’s) right about what he would have had in a regular preseason,” Barone said. “If you look at that, the timing and him getting his feet wet and so forth, I think he’s right on schedule.”

So take what Barone said and pair it with Kmet’s answer to a question on Sept. 25 about what’s humbled him through his first few NFL games:

“I think the speed of the game is something that's amplified from college,” Kmet said. “Everybody's kind of on your level. There were times in college where you could maybe be a little late off the snap and overpower a guy or get ahead of a guy. But everybody's got to be on the details when you're playing against professionals. I've really realized that for these first two games.”

Kmet wasn’t able to get acclimated to the speed of an NFL game until Sept. 13, the Bears’ season opener against the Lions. The Bears didn’t do live tackling in practice with the first and second-team offense in training camp, and while Kmet had some impressive moments on the back fields of Halas Hall, the speed of actual games is totally different.

But going by Barone’s measure, Kmet should start carving out a bigger role in the Bears’ offense in the coming weeks now that he’s had about 100 snaps to adjust to the challenges of the NFL.

“I have a lot of patience at this point,” Kmet said in September. “I'm a young player in this league. I'm 21. I'll be 21 this whole season. So I got a lot to learn still, got a lot of football to play and a lot of work throughout the process.”

Barone said Kmet is doing “fantastic” despite his relative lack of playing time and general invisibility in the box score. So why “fantastic?” Barone mentioned a block Kmet had on Buccaneers defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul on the first play of Thursday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers – which I gif’d here – as a sign he’s doing the things the Bears want him to.

“He had Jason Pierre-Paul in a wide, wide, wide technique, which we didn't know that he was going to be that wide, we thought maybe that he might be more head up which makes it easier for a tackle to help, he's out there all by himself,” Barone said. “Now JPP is a real defensive lineman, the guy's got a pretty good resume and here comes Cole – and if I'm not mistaken all the draft experts said that was the biggest question mark coming out of Notre Dame was his blocking.

“He didn't just reach JPP and gain leverage, he strained his hips through the block and actually flipped his hips and gave us a nice seam to go around. I have not seen that from very many players in my time in the NFL and here comes Cole and does this so things like that I'm just, and my peers around the league also saw it and that was, it was really something special.

“… Things like that tell you that this game is not too big for Cole. We all know that mentally, he’s got everything under control.”

So if Kmet is doing well in what was the biggest area of concern for him, that should help him eventually get on the field to make more of an impact as a pass-catcher.

Harris spent five years in a version of the Bears’ offense with the Kansas City Chiefs, including Matt Nagy’s two seasons as Andy Reid’s offensive coordinator (2016-2017). It makes sense, then, that his knowledge of the system has got him on the field more – he’s played 43 more snaps than Kmet this year.

Kmet is a better athlete and Harris and has much more upside. But when Nagy harps on the “details” of the offense needing to be better, a guy with years of experience in this scheme can probably be trusted more with them than a rookie who didn’t get to Halas Hall until late July.

“Demetrius is a guy that obviously has been in this system for a long time and knows it very well,” Barone said.

The Bears’ highest draft pick in 2020 has not made an impact through five games. All of these explanations for why are valid, but just because they are doesn’t mean Bears fans shouldn’t feel disappointed or frustrated with Kmet’s lack of involvement so far.

Even Nagy sounded frustrated with Kmet’s usage, saying last week the 15 snaps he played in Week 4 against the Indianapolis Colts were “not enough.” Kmet played 21 snaps in Week 5 against the Bucs.

These five games haven’t done anything to worsen my long-term outlook for Kmet, which remains that he’s going to be a good NFL tight end. But the Bears are set up to win now, and it’s worth questioning how much of a win-now move it was for Ryan Pace to use his highest draft pick on a tight end – especially with all the challenges presented by the lead-up to the 2020 season.

The Bears need more out of Kmet. They need him to overtake Harris on the “Y” (in-line) tight end pecking order. They need him to have better rookie stats than Adam Shaheen (12 catches, 127 yards, 3 TDs).

The Bears need the guy they drafted 43^rd overall to make a bigger impact right now.

They just might not get it.