Chicago Bears: 4 most intriguing storylines of Eagles game

Passing of the torch

One storyline that will be worth watching is how Tarik Cohen performs relative to Darren Sproles. In fact, their matchup reminds me of that dumb Spiderman meme on the internet where two Spiderman characters are pointing to each other. Even though it’s dumb, it’s apropos here.

That’s because Sproles was Cohen before Cohen. Drafted in 2005, Sproles missed the 2006 season with a broken ankle. But when he returned in 2007, he began to show signs of the versatile player that up until that point, the league had not really seen.

Until then, running backs were big bruisers, or at least big enough to carry the ball 30+ times per game over the course of a season. Sproles, however, began to break the mold and introduced the league to the value of having a versatile weapon that could run the ball, catch it out of the backfield, and return kickoffs and punts.

Cohen, when drafted in the fourth round of the 2017 NFL Draft out of North Carolina A&T, many of the pundits likened him to Sproles. Since that time, he has done everything to live up to those expectations, and even exceeding those of even the most optimistic Bears fan.

Tarik is the most dangerous offensive weapon on the Bears — just as Sproles is for the Eagles. Why the matchup is so intriguing is because it feels like whichever team can slow down the opponent’s spark plug more will have a distinct advantage in this game.