Chicago Bears 2024 tight end report card: grading Cole Kmet, Gerald Everett, and Marcedes Lewis

When the Chicago Bears hired former Seahawks offensive coordinator Shane Waldron as their OC on January 23, 2024, we knew two things about him:

His play calling in Seattle theoretically resurrected the career of quarterback Geno Smith.

He was successful utilizing multiple tight end sets.

Before Waldron was put out of our misery almost exactly 10 months later, he batted .000 on both of the above: His game planning arguably arrested two months of growth for rookie signal caller Caleb Williams, and his approach to the tight end position was, in a word, garbage.

Little surprise that his three primary TEs had among the lousiest years of their respective careers.

This is a chicken/egg thing: Did the tight ends stink because of Waldron, or did Waldron stink because of the tight ends?

Regardless, this was arguably the worst positional group on a team that had some super-questionable position groups, which is why you should probably hold your nose as you bask in the 2024 grades for three of the players who played a disproportionately large role in Chicago’s 5-12 record.

Cole Kmet

Remember Bears quarterback Rex Grossman? Remember how inconsistent he was? Remember he was so up-and-down that we alternated between calling him "Good Rex" and "Bad Rex?"

Welp, say hello to the 2024 version of Cole Kmet.

As anybody who had him on their fantasy team is well aware, the Notre Dame product had a boom-or-bust season, racking up double-digits in yardage 11 times, ten-or-less in three games, and goose-eggs in another three. And Kmet found pay dirt just four times, his fewest since 2021.

Chicken? Egg? Either way, it wasn’t a great look for a dude who, just two summers ago, as per Spotrac, signed a four-year, $50 million deal.

Grade: D+

Gerald Everett

While we’re on the topic of contracts, some expert pundits strongly feel that Everett’s deal was the most misguided of GM Ryan Poles’ Bears tenure...this expert pundit being one of them.

Again as per Spotrac, Everett took in $5.06 million—$1 million of which came via a signing bonus—and for that, he hauled in eight catches on 13 targets.

Depending on how you want to frame it, that’s either $632,500 per catch or $389,230 per target.

As my 11-year-old daughter would say, “Cringe.”

Grade: F-

Marcedes Lewis

Lewis managed to catch his lone 2024 target, a two-yard gain. But at 132-years-old, er, 40-years-old, he's the oldest tight end to ever play in the NFL, and he’s a beloved locker room figure, so he gets somewhat of a pass. Somewhat.