As if all the enthusiastic anticipation for the upcoming Chicago Bears season needed any more juice, a respected insider in Lake Forest is happy to inject his optimism.
Tight end Cole Kmet sees a playoff team awakening at Halas Hall, a group with the right combination of skill, belief, unity and toughness to make legitimate noise in 2024.
“The talent is real,” Kmet said during a recent sit-down with the Tribune. “You look around at all of our skill positions and we have a lot of dynamic players and a lot of guys who can do a lot of different things. Every single day, you can see the potential.”
Such positive energy has been building steadily since the spring, and Kmet can say without hesitation he feels the escalator ascending.
“It’s definitely moving,” he said. “And it’s moving in the right direction. How quickly it goes? We’ll see. It’s going to be on us to put it all together and to get this thing going as quickly as we can.
“But I’m as excited as I’ve been about where we’re at now and where we’re going.”
Where the Bears are going next is Soldier Field for Sunday’s season opener against the Tennessee Titans. It feels like a potential springboard game — or at least as much as a Week 1 test can be — and Kmet is convinced a window of opportunity has opened.
There may be no one on the planet more qualified to relay the vision and aspirations inside Halas Hall to eager observers across the Chicago area. Kmet understands why he has been unofficially appointed as a spokesman, a player with unique perspective and a strong voice to connect an energized locker room with an increasingly giddy fan base.
After all, Kmet is a member of both groups. Entering his fifth season, he hasn’t forgotten his roots. Arlington Heights native. Lifelong Bears fan.
Kmet was in second grade when the Bears went to Super Bowl XLI and 11 years old the last time they won a playoff game. He not only understands the payoff that awaits the next Bears breakthrough, he constantly craves it and imagines what it would be like to be in the center of it.
“Trust me,” Kmet said, “that’s all that matters. I mean, I know the Cubs winning the World Series was a big deal. The Blackhawks are obviously big when they win. And the Bulls too.
“But when the Bears win? This is a football town. So I fully understand what this will be when things get going. And it’s going to be pretty special.”
‘He’s different’
Any Bears conversation in 2024 inevitably focuses on rookie quarterback Caleb Williams. Kmet has felt that as intensely as anyone when he texts with friends, chats with relatives or encounters strangers in public.
Everyone wants to know about the team’s fortunes for this season and beyond. But more than anything, they all want to know about the new quarterback.
In the late 1990s, baseball broadcaster Steve Stone wrote a book called “Where’s Harry?” reflecting on the question he received more than any other due to his partnership with Harry Caray.
In a similar vein, Kmet might be able to start penning the first few chapters of his manuscript: “How’s Caleb?”
“Everywhere you go, it’s: ‘How’s Caleb doing? How does Caleb look?’” Kmet said with a laugh.
To that question, he smiles and quickly responds: “Yeah, Caleb is doing well. Really well.”
Kmet’s wide grin seems to indicate the Bears are simply waiting for the rest of the football world to understand the enthusiasm mushrooming inside Halas Hall.
Last month, Kmet emphasized how relaxed yet dialed in Williams was during his preseason debut at Buffalo. He was impressed with how upbeat Williams was pregame, how confident he was in the huddle and at the line of scrimmage, how easily he learned on the fly during his first NFL game action.
There was an aura that emanated.
“His confidence is just unwavering,” Kmet said. “And that was really cool to see.”
Asked if that infectious self-assuredness felt different from other Bears starting quarterbacks he has played with — seven in four years — Kmet nodded.
“Yeah,” he said, “He’s different. For sure.”
Go time
Kmet’s early bond with Williams has created an explosion of belief that the Bears, at long last, have found the quarterback to rewrite the team’s maddening history at the position. Kmet already has seen a connection quality in Williams that seems rare.
The rookie’s blend of charisma, humility, drive and composure has won over teammates across the locker room. And when Williams gets on the field and shows off some of that magic?
“We see it every day,” Kmet said, “just how talented he is and what he can do with his arm and what he can do from the pocket and his ability to process and see things quickly and rip throws when he needs to — but then also understanding how to put touch on balls and layer things when he has to as well.”
In this case, “different” feels oh so refreshing.
Since Kmet was born in 1999, the Bears have used 28 starting quarterbacks and never have enjoyed three consecutive winning seasons. Heck, Kmet has been an employee at Halas Hall long enough to have experience with four offensive play callers: Matt Nagy, Bill Lazor, Luke Getsy and current coordinator Shane Waldron.
He’s also the only Bear who can offer firsthand perspective on playing with Mitch Trubisky, Justin Fields and Williams.
“It’s wild,” Kmet said. “I have experienced a lot. I still feel like I just got here. And now it’s hard to believe I’m going into Year 5.
“In the moments, it sometimes seems like it goes by so slowly. But really, it all flies by.”
Which is why every dose of Kmet’s optimism is laced with urgency. He understands he must be patient as this team jells and Williams develops. But he also feels the sand in his football hourglass receding. Every single day.
“If I’m lucky,” he said, “I’ll play eight to 10 years. And that would make me extremely lucky. So that means you only get eight to 10 opportunities to go win a Super Bowl. Well, I’ve already had four. That’s four opportunities gone.
“So if I stay healthy and if I get to keep playing, that realistically leaves me four to six more chances to go win a Super Bowl. That’s it. That’s just how dire the situations in this league are.”
Constant change
Kmet has yet to miss a regular-season game in four seasons. He can convey the excitement from each of the Bears’ 24 victories since 2020 but more so the frustration he felt as, one after another, the loss total piled up to 44, including a dreadful playoff defeat in New Orleans his rookie season.
The last three years, the Bears finished last in the NFC North.
For myriad reasons they have changed starting quarterbacks 16 times during Kmet’s career. From Trubisky to Nick Foles back to Trubisky in 2020; from Andy Dalton to Fields back to Dalton back to Fields over to Foles and back to Dalton in 2021; from Fields to Trevor Siemian back to Fields and then to Nathan Peterman in 2022; and finally back to Fields and over to Tyson Bagent and back once more to Fields last season. That was all before this spring’s pivot to Williams.
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So much for continuity, right? After enduring all of that dizziness, Kmet feels like he has grown into a more complete player.
“I’ve had to learn to adjust my game to different guys who have been playing and to different coordinators who’ve been calling plays,” he said. “You can look at it like, yeah, with some consistency, maybe I could have been a lot more productive if there had only been one quarterback or one coordinator.
“But at the end of the day, I’ve learned to grind through that. And I feel like I’m coming out the other side of it as a better all-around player.”
Kmet remains a devoted subscriber to the football philosophy that all teams — driven by their quarterback — need to learn how to win.
“That’s real,” he said.
He has talked about that concept multiple times during his career and echoed it as this season begins.
“All these games come down to two-minute scenarios,” he continued. “That’s what this league is. Maybe you’ll get a couple games where you really dominate an opponent and take it to them and it’s a clean win where you win by a couple scores. But the numbers tell you that doesn’t happen very often. So it comes down to situational football at the end of the first half and in the fourth quarter.
“I don’t know what our stats have been the past couple years, but they haven’t been good enough to win games (consistently).”
He’s right. Since a 5-1 start to Kmet’s rookie season, the Bears are 7-17 in games decided by seven points or fewer. Last season, three of their 10 losses came after they held double-digit leads in the fourth quarter.
Adding to the misery, Fields’ well-documented struggles in the fourth quarter — a 61.3 career passer rating and a 13% success rate in leading the Bears to a potential tying or go-ahead score in the final eight minutes — are reminders of the team’s repeated inability to finish strong.
“That,” Kmet said, “is kind of where we’ve been falling short.”
It’s not hard to read between the lines there, to feel Kmet’s past aggravation turning into optimism. The hope is that Williams quickly will become the engine of the Bears’ learn-to-win train, a playmaker who consistently seizes game-on-the-line moments and lifts his team to victory.
“As a group, once you get the knack for it, you gain that confidence,” Kmet said. “And it’s just like anything. From there, it just keeps growing and growing. Obviously you want the quarterback to feel what that sensation feels like and grow with the understanding of how to operate in those situations.”
Kmet remains grounded enough that, while he believes the Bears can be a playoff team this season, he knows Williams won’t be a finished product or an NFL star by the end of September. But that’s OK.
“Look,” Kmet said, “at the end of every Sunday, you’ve just to be good enough to win. Whatever that looks like, that’s what it has to be on that day. We have to be able to play winning football while still improving all throughout the season.”
Best of all, Kmet believes, Williams has the maturity to understand that. All of it.
“His mindset is all about winning,” Kmet said. “And when you have that mindset, I don’t think he necessarily cares what that looks like. He just wants to win.
“We’ll worry about the corrections on Monday morning or Tuesday afternoon or whenever we go over the correction tape. But when we step on that grass on Sunday, it’s only about getting those wins.”
‘I’ve delivered on that’
Now in the first season of the four-year, $50 million extension he signed last summer, Kmet continues to lean into advice Jimmy Graham imparted back when Kmet entered the league in 2020.
Graham, then a 10-year veteran with nearly 8,000 receiving yards and 74 touchdown catches, stressed the need to strengthen habits that create consistency. With preparation. With diet. With a recovery routine. With meeting focus. With practice effort.
And with no dips.
“You build those habits to where it all just becomes normal,” Kmet said. “You become a machine where you are capable of doing it all over and over and over again.
“For me, I think that’s a big part of why I’ve continued to improve every year and have the success I’ve had. It’s that consistency aspect. … I always want them to feel upstairs (in the front office) and for our coaches to feel that they won’t ever have to worry about me after I leave the facility and that they know exactly who I am every single day I step on the practice field. I think so far, I’ve delivered on that.”
Kmet desperately wants to deliver so much more. Wins. Playoff appearances. A long run of team success that hopefully one day will carry the Bears to the Super Bowl.
He feels the anticipation growing as much as anyone. Throughout the locker room, he senses a hunger and a belief that tells him the collective daily approach will be healthy and energizing.
“We have a lot of guys here who are Super Bowl-driven,” he said.
Now comes the process of pursuing that grand goal, step by step. It starts with Sunday’s opener against the Titans. Kickoff can’t arrive soon enough.
