Cole Kmet Giving Bears Effort Worth Shouting About
A little confidence works wonders.
After the last two games, no one can question where tight end Cole Kmet's confidence level is, and it was as obvious as the Houston Texans he trucked in Sunday's 36-7 Bears victory.
Coach Matt Nagy said Kmet hollered out loud about not being able to be stopped after knocking down would-be tacklers on one first-half completion.
"Yeah, I did. I was pumped up afterward. I said it," Kmet admitted.
Kmet went Mike Ditka on the Texans—with the catch, run and crash, not necessarily the hollering. Running after the catch and lowering his shoulder led to 41 yards on four receptions, making it nine receptions for 78 yards the last two games. One was a bone-rattling 16-yard gain.
"It was cool," Kmet said. "I thought were we being physical all game and I thought it ws obviously a good run. I was able to break a couple tackles there and whatnot.
"I just thought we were playing really well up front and being really physical. I think everyone was jacked up. That kinda was the one that kinda represented a lot of what we did that game."
Kmet's responsibilities in the offense have obviously gone up as his snaps increased. He played 78% and 85% of the snaps the last two games while earlier in the year was lucky to get 15 to 20 snaps.
"I thought I've handled it well," Kmet said. "I think everything they've thrown at me, I've been able to handle and execute well in both the run and pass game.
"Obviously I'm looking forward to the weeks to come as I get more and more involved in the offense. It's been good so far. Looking forward to our last three weeks of the regular season."
While it seemed Kmet was lagging behind earlier, the Bears say it was only expected.
"Figure a guy that was, he just turned 21 a couple of days before the draft, so he's not an older seasoned guy," Bears tight ends coach Clancy Barone said. "He's a guy who was a dual sport athlete, so he couldn't even spend his whole time in college on just football, like most guys can. And obviously coming out early for the draft and what-not.
"I think he's doing a fantastic. He's is probably ahead of schedule. I think the dual threat or the tight end tandem of he and Jimmy Graham is really pretty good."
Barone gave the credit for seeing Kmet's potential to GM Ryan Pace and scouts.
"He was NFL ready," Barone said. "His play-speed is much faster than probably anyone gave him credit for."
Kmet has come along as a blocker, as well. This was an area he admitted he needed work.
"He's very, very heavy handed," Barone said. "When he locks those big mitts on you, it shocks you. And I've had veteran players tell me that."
Mitchell Trubisky saw what Kmet was capable of and made him one of the players on his short list of people he felt the offense needed to work more into game plans. Last week and all the catching, crashing and hollering backed up Trubisky's belief.
"He's just a special player," Trubisky said. "He has the potential to be really great. think his love for the game, his energy and his overall football IQ is what separates him from most young guys and then I just think his size and strength combined with his speed is what is hard to bring down.
"DBs are just not big enough to tackle him up top and you saw a couple times in the game there literally the whistle is blowing and he's not taken to the ground. They blow the whistle because the forward progress is stopped but he's not on the ground. They just stop him because he's got five guys trying to bring him down. It's really impressive and we just gotta continue to get the ball in his hands and see what he can do run after the catch but he's been running great routes."
The confidence continues to build, if not the hollering.
Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven
