Bears hope for breakout season for tight end Cole Kmet
CHICAGO (CBS) – The Bears were back to practicing on Friday after a day off and the offense continues to be a work in progress.
Tight end Cole Kmet taking a big step forward in his third season would certainly help quarterback Justin Fields and an offense seemingly lacking quality pass catchers.
Kmet is coming off a solid second season with 60 receptions and more than 600 receiving yards, but he failed to score a single touchdown. New offensive coordinator Luke Getsy has been lining him up inside and outside and said Kmet has a lot of cool tools that he's starting to learn to use.
"I get a lot of opportunities to try out these different tools and that's really exciting," Kmet said. "So I'm not afraid to go out and try stuff. It may not work all the time and that's alright, but I'm OK failing here or there just to see how it works. In the end it's only going to make me better."
"I think you talk about a guy that we hope can do a lot of different things," said Getsy. "You know he's gotta get better at just about everything because he's on the brink right now of taking his game to another level. So I'm hopeful that by the time we get through this camp, he's ready to be a rockstar for us, because we're going to need him to be."
Kmet added, "You want to win game for this franchise. You know, I'm a kid that grew up in this area and I want to be part of a winning team here and a team that will go on to win the Super Bowl. That's what I want to be a part of. You know that's where your patience sets in. You want to see that happen and sometimes it just takes a little bit of a process for it to happen."
From all accounts, Friday's practice was the most grueling of training camp. Kmet said it was probably the hardest practice he's ever been a part of.