The Chicago Bears are officially in the second half of the 2025 NFL season now that the calendar has flipped to Week 10. Head coach Ben Johnson's first campaign behind the bench has been up and down, to say the least, but the positives are outweighing the negatives lately, leaving Bears fans hopeful that more success will be found in the lead-up to the postseason.
But as promising as things appear to be in the Windy City, Chicago still has plenty of room for improvement. Certain Bears must step up in the remaining games to achieve a playoff berth, and that includes a certain offensive playmaker, who's left plenty to be desired through nine weeks.
Bears TE Cole Kmet Has Been a 1st-Half Disappointment
Cole Kmet's future with the Bears has been in question ever since rookie tight end Colston Loveland was drafted in April. The veteran pass-catcher's numbers took a major dip in the 2024 season, and Chicago's drafting Loveland 10th overall seemed to signal that the franchise was open to moving on from Kmet. Few Bears fans held out faith that the rookie's arrival would motivate his veteran counterpart's turnaround, but that hasn't been the case.
Through seven games, Kmet has only caught 10-of-21 targets (47.6%) for 142 receiving yards and a touchdown, marking his worst start to a season since his rookie year. The former Notre Dame TE is on pace for an abysmal 23-325-2 stat line if he doesn't miss a game, but even that underwhelming projection might be missed after he suffered a concussion in Sunday's win over the Cincinnati Bengals. It doesn't help that Loveland had a career day in Kmet's absence.
It's also clear that the Bears are slowly phasing Kmet out of the attack. He went from averaging 4.0 targets in the first four games of the season to only 1.7 in the last three. Yes, injuries have played a role in the lackluster numbers, but it's also clear that Chicago isn't rushing to get him the ball whenever he is on the field.
Some fans might chalk Kmet's slow start up to the back injury he was previously dealing with, but that might be a cop out. He didn't miss a single game last year, yet his performance still dropped off a cliff from 73-719-6 in 2023 to 47-474-4. His four-year, $50 million extension is starting to look worse with each passing season, and his $11.6 million cap hits in 2026 and 2027 are going to be tougher to justify — especially if Loveland's ascent keeps skyrocketing.
Whenever he's cleared from concussion protocol, it'll be interesting to see how and if Kmet bounces back. If he can prove that his first-half slump was an outlier and successfully turns things around, the sky could be the limit for the Bears' offense with Johnson's creative mind at the helm.
But if not, and Kmet's second half replicates the first two months of the season, his days in Chicago will likely be numbered sooner rather than later. The Bears can free up $8.4 million in cap space by cutting or trading him in the offseason, per Spotrac, meaning it'll be up to Kmet to prove to the front office and coaching staff down the stretch that a potential divorce won't be necessary.