Chicago Bears - Fantasy News

Chicago Bears Fantasy Wide Receivers Catch One Pass in Win vs. Steelers

by Adam Markowitz

9/24/17

NFL

Chicago Bears

Deonte Thompson

John Fox has been known to do a few unorthodox things in his coaching days.

Fox is the man who installed the triple-option with Tim Tebow as his quarterback in Denver. Fox is the man who asked Jonathan Stewart and DeAngelo Williams to split carries in Carolina before virtually every team in the NFL went to a dual-back approach. And now, Fox is the man who engineered an offense that was capable of winning a game while having completed exactly one pass to a wide receiver.

The Chicago Bears were dreadful in every sense of the word in a 23-17 win over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Week 3. They were absolutely zero fun to watch in attempting to move the ball against the Steelers, yet they were somehow miraculously capable every step of the way. They never trailed and always looked in control.

Yet after averaging a paltry 3.97 yards per play in regulation, the Bears ripped off runs of 36, 18 and 19 yards in a row to overwhelm the Steelers and win the game 23-17 in overtime.

The final box score tells the whole tale of this one. Deonte Thompson caught one pass for nine yards, and he was the leading receiver on the day. Even if you toss in the tight ends, the non-running backs on this team finished the day with three receptions for 28 yards.

This game was all about Jordan Howard and Tarik Cohen. The two Chicago tailbacks were both wildly successful, Howard running the ball 23 times for 138 yards and two touchdowns to go with five receptions for 26 yards, and Cohen picking up 78 yards as a rusher and 24 more as a receiver.

Fox has been on the record stating that Mike Glennon is going to continue as his starting quarterback in spite of all of the jeering from the Chicago media that it’s time to see what Mitch Trubisky can bring to the table. That said, Fox doesn’t think that the rookie is ready at this point, yet he still doesn’t want Glennon to screw things up for him. That’s why Glennon attempted just one pass that traveled more than 20 yards in the air against Pittsburgh, and why the team didn’t have a single play for more than 17 yards before overtime.

To make the day even screwier, the Bears also fumbled the ball five times and only lost one of the five.

And this happened.

But the real question in the land of Dober Games is what to do with the Bears and their wide receivers going forward. Against Pittsburgh, Kendall Wright was the top receiver for Dober Projected Fantasy Points with 7.5, and he wasn’t even targeted in the game. Kevin White has a broken shoulder blade and is going to miss at least a few more games. Thompson has had exactly two games in his career with more than 50 receiving yards.

And now, the Bears have to travel to Lambeau Field on a short week to play against the Packers and their vaunted offense.

Though it’s really hard to trust any of the Chicago receivers or Glennon going forward, you almost have no choice but to do so. Rodgers and the Packers have put at least 20 points on the board in 11 of their last 12 games against the Bears, including at least 26 in six of their last seven. Chicago won’t be afforded the luxury of playing this game from ahead like it did against Pittsburgh, effectively limiting the amount of times that Cohen and Howard can run the ball without at least attempting to pick up some bigger chunks of yards.

Thus it’s with a mighty gulp and our nose pinched firmly shut that we recommend taking the plunge and playing all of the Chicago wide receivers in Week 4 against Green Bay on Thursday night, even after the disaster that was the Steelers game. If Glennon throws for at least 200 yards, it’ll be really hard for at least a few of his wideouts to not reach their pathetically low DFPs.