TE Robert Tonyan Hauls in Red Zone Touchdown
Credit: Chicago Bears
The Year of the Tight End?
OTAs Sparked A Thought On The Position's Potential
Sunday, June 18, 2023
If you're like me, the Gregorian calendar is essentially secondary to the National Football League calendar. Sure we celebrate at midnight in January, but our New Year begins in March when UFAs begin signing and the League year is anew. Bears fans seem to have a certain optimism about 2023, the likes of which haven't been felt since the letdown season that followed 2018's playoff berth.
GM Ryan Poles was in his bag this offseason and the Bears' roster saw extensive changes on both sides of the ball with the team adding Free Agent Linebackers T.J. Edwards and Treamaine Edmunds, bolstering the offensive line by drafting Darnell Wright with the 10th pick, and of course securing a number one receiver for Justin Fields via the acquistion of D.J. Moore.
One of Poles' procurements that may have gone overlooked amongst the litany of roster moves was the signing of Tight End Robert Tonyan. If you happened to see the highlight video of Fields' laser to Tonyan in practice last week, which the TE nabbed with one hand, you'll understand the reactionary response thinking of all the possibilities for the tight end role within the offense.
Travel back with me to 2011, when that dunce Mike Martz decided to offload All-Pro Tight End Greg Olsen because the position didn't fit into the scheme Martz was wanting to run. I won't get into the fallout of such a move, we all saw what Olsen went on to do for the Panthers and later the Seahawks. But what did Bears fans get? We got season after season of wandering through a tight end desert while other franchises used the position to make their offenses flourish. Rotating pieces at the position since 2011 have left many Bears fans wondering, "When will we get one of those?"
The first mirage Bears fans caught a glimpse of in our nomadic search for fulfillment was in the form of Martellus Bennett. Bennett, a former second round pick of the Dallas Cowboys, came to the Bears after spending his first five seasons in the NFC East. In three seasons with Chicago, the tight end averaged 704 yards and 4.7 touchdowns, placing him somewhere between the 12th and 13th most productive tight end in the league.
The second mirage wasn't a tight end at all, it was the ultimate duping in the form of what Clark Griswold would call a "bag over the head, punch in the face" Bears fans received in the 2018 hiring of Matt Nagy. Nagy, a branch of the Andy Reid coaching tree that also produced Super Bowl winning Head Coach Doug Pederson, had Trey Burton and later Cole Kmet at his disposal. There was reason for optimism that the Bears had finally figured it out and would unlock a potent offensive attack with the tight end as the fulcrum; look at what Reid has done with Travis Kelce and Pederson had done with Zach Ertz in their time together. But, alas, as with Nagy's tenure, it was all a hope and a dream.
Alright, back to 2023. What exactly did Tonyan's one-handed touchdown inspire in me to write this article and create this site? To most people, a delusion of grandeur; however, an underlying necessity for Bears fans new and old is a foundation of hope. Images of the 12-personnel-laden offense ran by the Patriots of the early 2010s crept into my head, I thought "Why not us?" What if the Bears decided to just trot out a pair of 6'5" and 6'6" tight ends with D.J. Moore and Darnell Mooney to the outside? Why can't the Bears reap the rewards of what all that size can bring?
The answer to these questions remains to be seen, but surely the bulk of them are answered by how much time QB1 is provided by our new-fashioned offensive line. Chemistry between Fields and Moore, the return of Mooney and his explosiveness also play a factor in the production from the tight end position. We also need to understand what second-year Offensive Coordinator Luke Getsy's vision for the position is.
The addition of Robert Tonyan, and Cole Kmet's 2022 numbers provide ample fodder for belief that the Bears could see a lot of red zone focus on this position.
In 2020, playing for Getsy in Green Bay's offense, Tonyan received the fourth-most targets but was second only to Davante Adams in touchdowns, scoring 11 times, five more than WR Marquez Valdes-Scantling. Last year, Cole Kmet led Bears receivers with 8 red zone targets, hauling in 6 touchdowns from inside the 20. He led the team in overall touchdown receptions, seven, while being out-targeted by only Chase Claypool. Darnell Mooney's injury of course plays a factor in these numbers; however, there is cause for Bears fans to be inspired by the potential for the tight end position in the second year of this offense.
Fans won't and shouldn't believe we'll see the 2011 Patriots offense clad in Navy and Orange, but there's reason to believe the tight end position could flourish like we haven't seen since Jay Cutler and Greg Olsen were in the driver's seat.