The Chicago Bears improved to 6-2 with a 17-point win over the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks on Monday night.
New defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons looked every bit the missing piece in his debut. However, the offense is still dealing with a key loss.
Veteran tight end Cole Kmet suffered a season-ending right knee injury in the fourth quarter of the Bears’ 30-24 win over the New England Patriots on Oct. 22. The team placed him on injured reserve the next day.
That leaves Colston Loveland as the starter and rookie third-round pick Sam Roush as the only other tight end on the 53-man roster. With the Nov. 10 trade deadline fast approaching, ESPN’s Ben Solak believes Chicago could find cheap help from a team it already beat this season.
Panthers TE Ja’Tavion Sanders Linked to Bears
In his weekly “seven things I think” column, Solak proposed a deal that sends Carolina Panthers tight end Ja’Tavion Sanders to the Bears for a 2027 sixth-round pick.
“Sanders has been a healthy scratch in Carolina for much of the season despite his draft status as a 2024 fourth-round selection,” Solak wrote. “He is buried on the depth chart behind Tommy Tremble, Darren Waller and the direly underrated Mitchell Evans, but still has some YAC skills.
“The Bears lost Cole Kmet for the season because of a major knee injury, and though Sanders shares none of Kmet’s skill set, he gives them another option at TE3 behind Colston Loveland and rookie third-round pick Sam Roush.”
Sanders has fallen off the map in Carolina. By October, he still hasn’t played a game and is buried behind Tommy Tremble, Darren Waller and Mitchell Evans.
That’s a far cry from where things stood not long ago. The 23-year-old Texas alum caught 33 passes for 342 yards and a touchdown as a rookie in 2024. He followed that up with 29 catches, 190 yards and another score in 13 games last season before a leg injury landed him on IR.
Why Sanders Makes Sense for the Bears
To be clear, Sanders isn’t Kmet. Solak noted as much.
Kmet (10 catches, 87 yards, 1 TD this season) did a lot of the dirty work as an in-line blocker. Sanders is more of a receiving tight end who can make plays after the catch. Still, head coach Ben Johnson leans on his tight ends as much as anyone.
In Johnson’s first season, the Bears’ third tight end, Durham Smythe, was on the field for 293 snaps (25% of the season total). Even with Kmet and Loveland both healthy, that third spot mattered.
The Bears are high on Roush, but he had just three catches for 33 yards through seven games. Behind him, the options are practice-squad tight ends Stephen Carlson and Qadir Ismail, plus undrafted rookie Hayden Large, who is eligible to come off IR.
There’s also the matter of what the Bears have left to spend. Chicago already sent two first-round picks to the Tennessee Titans for Simmons, a deal the Chicago Sun-Times noted rules out another blockbuster before the deadline.
A sixth-round pick for tight end depth is hardly a blockbuster, but it might be a deal worth making regardless.
Bears Trade Pitch Flips 2027 Draft Pick for Cole Kmet Replacement