The Chicago Bears won’t have tight end Cole Kmet for the remainder of the season after his tore his ACL against the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football, but the team is perhaps as well prepared for this particular loss as any organization could be.
Head coach Ben Johnson arrived to Chicago in 2025 and immediately prioritized the fortification of the tight end position. The Bears drafted Colston Loveland with the 10th overall pick in the first round that year, adding him to the roster alongside Kmet even after recently extending the latter on a $50 million contract.
Then in April, Chicago selected Sam Roush out of Stanford. The rookie has had some issues with drops and missed blocking assignments during his early transition to the NFL, but he was one of the better TE prospects in both regards coming out of college this offseason.
Johnson, who values the position and uses multiple-tight end sets as much as almost any coach in the league, noted on Friday that the team will lean hard on Roush after Kmet’s injury.
“We’ll be able to see the player that we drafted. We had high hopes when we took him,” Johnson said. “I’m confident in what he’s going to be able to do for us back half of the season.”
Bears Have 4th Tight End They Like in Hayden Large
Chicago also added former Iowa tight end/fullback Hayden Large as an undrafted free agent during the offseason.
Large impressed Johnson long before training camp and the preseason, and he ended up making the 53-man roster when the end of August rolled around.
“He was one of the guys we identified, well before the draft, that he’s a player we really liked,” Johnson said during rookie minicamp. “I actually called him and let him know that we had a vision for him. When you take a tight end in the third round [Sam Roush], you’re kind of like ‘Ah shoot. That might take us away from Hayden coming here.’ And yet, he didn’t bat an eye. This is where he wanted to be, and to me that speaks volumes about how he’s wired. … I think we got a good one.”
Sam Roush Has Extra Time to Prepare for New Role, While Bears Can Also Still Trade for Another Tight End
The timing of Kmet’s injury is at least a little fortuitous in that it came two and a half weeks ahead of the NFL’s trade deadline.
Chicago (5-2) is a candidate to potentially buy at multiple positions, as the Bears are legitimate contenders in the NFC. Tight end is now among the several spots they could target, though the market isn’t particularly flush with options who are both readily available and the type of players about whom fans might also get excited.
Another silver lining is that Chicago has 11 days between games after playing on a short week. The Bears don’t take the field again until they travel to Seattle to play the Seahawks on November 2, which should give Roush plenty of time to work with the first-team and perhaps equal better results than he found early in his inaugural pro campaign.
Bears Issue Definitive Message on Cole Kmet Replacement Plan Post-Injury