Smith Trending Up, Pranking Tarik, O.J. Howard as an Offseason Trade Target? and Other Bears Bullets

I am going to cram my eyeballs full of #sports the next few days.

  • Bulls-Bucks tonight in Milwaukee.
  • Clippers-Hawks on Saturday at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
  • Bears-Rams on Sunday night at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
  • Other than that, I don’t have much going on my plate at this time …

  • Watching a Mic’d Up Roquan Smith was everything I needed to start my day:
  • (Michael: My favorite part of this clip is when the receiver Roquan Smith was covering says “Oh, man! I was open! And Smith laughingly responds with a “Yeah, you was!” Absolutely hilarious.)
  • Smith looked like the next stud Bears inside linebacker as a rookie, especially in the second half of his rookie season. But a slow start to the year and his absence due to personal reasons against Minnesota were causes for concern among Bears fans. HOWEVER, things are starting to round into form for Smith. He has collected back-to-back games with double digit tackles after having just one 10+ tackle performance in his first six games. Smith still doesn’t have a quarterback sack or tackle-for-loss this season, but he is trending in the right direction. No better time than Sunday Night Football to change those numbers … I’m just saying.
  • We need to have a wider discussion about the tight ends room, but this doesn’t look good:
  • Mitch Trubisky is an obvious candidate for biggest disappointment of the 2019 season, but is there a position group that has underperformed more than the Bears’ tight ends? One receiving touchdown from Ben Braunecker (an undrafted free agent from Harvard with minimal NFL experience) and some quality blocks from J.P. Holtz (who was brought in off the waiver wire early in the season) when used as an “I” formation fullback are the only things to stand out from this season. Trey Burton has struggled through injuries, but at least he has gutted it out to make it to the playing field. Adam Shaheen has been a no-show in Year 3 of his pro career. For a position that was deemed to be so important to the offense’s success, it is bad that this group is struggling as much as it is.
  • And as NFL analyst Chris Weaseling points out, that production matches the (equally disappointing) O.J. Howard.
  • But if it was up to me (it isn’t), Howard should be someone the Bears target in an offseason deal if they’re looking to immediately upgrade the position. Tight ends have never been a great fixture in Bruce Arians’ offense, and Howard has the size, speed, hands, and prospect pedigree teams dream of in a tight end. It could be worth monitoring.
  • Allen Robinson is good:
  • Someone keeps getting laughs in the Bears’ locker room at the expense of the smallest guy on the team:
  • https://www.instagram.com/p/B40UFXdl34J/

  • Who’s prankin’ Cohen? I’m not sure. But at least we know the Bears aren’t operating as a tightly wound bunch despite falling short of preseason expectations to this point.
  • Swagger had to be on a hundred thousand trillion to wear that blazer:
  • Remember when Vic Fangio broke Jared Goff? That was cool.
  • Teams haven’t stopped copying the scheme since:
  • A Bears-Rams memory that is fun to look back on:
  • Speakers, clothes, and outdoor equipment are among your Deals of the Day today at Amazon. #ad
  • written by

    Luis C. Medina, who you can find on Twitter at lcm1986, has been covering the Chicago Bears at Bleacher Nation since 2017. Since then, he has written about 3 head coaches, 5 play-callers, and 11 starting quarterbacks. Previously, Luis wrote about the Cubs and MLB at BN (2015-16) and worked in the Chicago Tribune sports department (2011-16). He also co-hosted a Cubs postgame show, Outside the Ivy, in 2019.

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