4-EYED OFFENSIVE TEAM PREVIEW: CHICAGO BEARS (2021)
It’s Day 7 of our 4-EYED TEAM PREVIEW SERIES and we are continuing our coverage of the NFC North with the Chicago Bears! This morning we’re talking offense and later today we’ll be releasing our IDP outlook, so stay tuned!
There is a chance that we look back on the 2021 NFL Draft and commend the Chicago Bears on getting the steal of the draft when they traded up to take Justin Fields at number 15. The quarterback out of Ohio State was projected to land in the number one to number three slots of the draft and he fell into the Bears lap at 11. Now whether or not you believe the ‘coach speak’ that Andy Dalton will be the Week 1 starter for the Bears, Fields has some definite intrigue this season. The rest of the Bears offense has relatively the same cast and crew as 2020 other than Tarik Cohen returning from injury and the free-agent signing of Damien Williams.
So, who are the players from the Bears offense that can help you win a fantasy championship in 2021?
Find out below in our 2021 Bears 4-EYED Offensive Team Preview!
Quarterbacks
Andy Dalton
On the Dallas Cowboys in 2020, Dalton filled in as the starting quarterback once Dak Prescott suffered his season-ending injury in Week 5. Playing in 11 games, Dalton finished as the QB30 in fantasy (Yahoo scoring), and he threw for 2,169 yards, 14 touchdowns, and eight interceptions. Dalton was underappreciated in a pass-heavy Bengals offense for the majority of his career, but the Bears are going to want to run the ball with David Montgomery to set up the passes for Allen Robinson. I personally don’t see Dalton being the quarterback the whole season. They have a later bye week, Week 10, so at the very least if they aren’t competing then, it should be Fields o’clock. I don’t think you should be drafting Dalton and then if he starts to click in this offense early, pick him up off of waivers.
Justin Fields
Coming out of Ohio State University, Justin Fields most recently played in the National Championship game against Alabama, and once Bama got to a big lead, we didn’t see a ton of him. If you haven’t seen Fields play, go look up highlights of the Semi-Final game against Clemson this past January. Fields put on an absolute clinic completing 22 of 28 passes for 385 yards, six touchdowns, and only one interception. I wouldn’t consider Fields a full dual-threat quarterback for the Bears, as his rushing has always just been enough to open up the offense, but he isn’t going to be the team’s leading rusher like Lamar Jackson of the Baltimore Ravens. If Fields does sit to start the season for the Bears, he is just waiting for an injury or poor performance from Dalton and he will be the starter. A more obvious draft pick in dynasty startups, if you are in a pure re-draft league, I would only spend a late-round draft pick on him if it doesn’t become more clear by your draft that he will be the starter.
Running Backs
David Montgomery
If you had to guess who the RB4 in PPR scoring was last year, would you have guessed David Montgomery in your first 10 guesses? I sure didn’t. Montgomery went through basically the definition of a tale of two seasons. The Bears bye week was Week 11 last year and ‘Monty’ missed Week 10. In Weeks 1-9, Montgomery was the RB14, so not bad at all, but he was averaging 10.6 points per game and sitting in that RB2 territory. From Weeks 12-17, Monty was the RB2 averaging 23.7 fantasy points per game. Monty has shown that he has the talent to produce and I think he will be better served with Fields under center so if Dalton is looking like the starting quarterback at least initially, I would fade Monty slightly.
Tarik Cohen
One big aspect of Monty’s success in the run game last year was that receiving back extraordinaire Tarik Cohen wasn’t in the backfield. Cohen tore his ACL in the Bears Week 3 game in 2020 and recently Head Coach Matt Nagy said that they don’t know if Cohen is going to be ready for Week 1. While that is going to scare some people away, all I’m reading is that that probably will drop his ADP and increase his value because we know what Cohen can do. When he last played a full season in 2019, Cohen was the RB37 in fantasy with 64 rushing attempts, but 79 receptions. Yes, Montgomery will be involved in the Bears passing game some, but this is Cohen’s bread and butter. Definitely grab him if you can in later rounds.
Damien Wiliams
The last time we saw Damien Williams suit up on the football field, he was celebrating a Super Bowl win with the Kansas City Chiefs as he opted out of the 2020 season. In the 2019 fantasy season, Williams played in 11 games and finished as the RB35. The big question is going to be seeing how he is utilized in this Bears offense. Because of this, I am not looking to draft Williams, but he is a player that I am going to keep an eye on his early usage and see if he may be waiver-worthy in the early part of the season.
Wide Receivers
Allen Robinson II
Robinson had the third most targets for a wide receiver in the NFL last season. The reason that Robinson isn’t being taken with the top receivers in the league, even though he led the league in targets, he finished fourth in receptions, sixth in yards, eighth in touchdowns, ninth in yards after the catch per reception, and sixth in yards per route run, is the lack of knowing who is the clear starting QB for the team is which makes fantasy managers slightly nervous. That all being said, Robinson is a consistent and reliable receiver that both Dalton and/or Fields will be targeting often since Robinson only had one drop last year. He will probably be drafted as a WR2, but 2020’s WR12 has definite WR1 upside.
Darnell Mooney and Anthony Miller
Mooney and Miller ranked second and third on the Bears for targets in 2020. The two of them basically combined to almost equal Robinsons II’s stats himself. The problem with this is like the New Orleans Saints, it feels like this offense should be able to support two fantasy-relevant wide receivers, but it hasn’t happened. Last year, Mooney was the WR51 while Miller was the WR73. Going off of this, don’t overdraft either of these guys, but I would say you should spend a later-round pick on Mooney and leave Miller undrafted to be a hopeful waiver wire target.
Tight Ends
Jimmy Graham
While there are surprising cap casualties in the offseason every season, Graham had the joy of being a surprise cap hit when the Bears chose to not save the potential seven million dollars they could have by cutting him. This halted the Cole Kmet hype train before it could really get out of the gate. Even though it didn’t feel like he had that great of a season, Graham finished as the TE11 last season and he averaged 7.4 fantasy points per game. Going into 2021, I would love if Graham was my backup tight end, but I would feel slightly worried if I was going to rely on him week-to-week just because of the emergence of Kmet and his likely use in the offense.
Cole Kmet
Kmet’s social media hype was real when it was assumed that Graham was going to be a cap casualty and he is the likely tight end of the future for the Bears. That being said, Kmet’s 2021 value is capped by Graham’s presence barring an injury. The Bears kept Graham for a reason, so the Kmet break out will probably have to wait a year. Keep an eye out though because in 2020 Kmet was the sixth most targeted player in the passing game with 42 targets. If the tight end target share pendulum happens to swing his way at any point, I don’t know that we will give up that involvement easily.
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