Chicago Bears Fantasy Football 2019: What to Remember

mitchell trubisky chicago bears sleeper quarterback NFC Wild Card

If you rewind to the 2019 preseason, we pinned a lot of fantasy football hopes and dreams on the Chicago Bears. Unfortunately, their Mitch Trubisky did not take the step forward that we hoped, and David Montgomery couldn’t overcome a truly terrible offense. What, then, should we remember about the Chicago Bears’ 2019 season when we go into 2020 fantasy football drafts?

What to Remember from the 2019 Chicago Bears Season
  1. For the second year in a row, we must chop up partial seasons from Anthony Miller to try to create some sort of feel-goods about his season. This year, it’s weeks 11 through 15. In that span, Miller averaged 10.4 targets per game, catching 6.6 balls per contest for 86.2 yards. Not bad at all! In fact, he was a top-ten WR in that timespan, joining his teammate Allen Robinson. We must keep chopping up his season due to an ankle injury and a recurring shoulder injury and—surprise, surprise—he’s having offseason shoulder surgery again.
  2. Tarik Cohen had the third-most RB targets and was one of just four running backs with at least 100 targets. Unfortunately, he did next-to-nothing with them. By next-to-nothing, I mean he was one of the least efficient running backs at getting yards through the air last year. Of backs with at least 25 targets, he had the fourth-lowest yards per target. In half-PPR, Cohen had more games outside the top-40 at running back (5) as he had inside the top-24 (AKA “RB2 numbers”). To sum it up, the Bears provided Cohen with plenty of opportunities, but he did very little with them.
  3. Surprisingly, Allen Robinson kept healthy for the entire season, and largely rewarded those who took him in fantasy football drafts. However, there were some fits and starts to begin the season. He turned in a 4/41 effort and a 6/60 effort in weeks one and two and had an instance of six yards and fifteen yards in a three-game stretch in the middle of the season. After that stretch, ARob went to the next level. He played on a 109-catch, 1,371-yard, 11-touchdown pace over the last six games of the season.
  4. No rookie fell harder on their faces for fantasy football purposes than David Montgomery. He rushed for over 75 yards just three times, and Tarik Cohen’s 100+ targets left Montgomery with passing game scraps. The offensive line ranked fourth-worst at run blocking, per FootballOutsiders’ adjusted line yards metric. They were above Pittsburgh (blech), the Jets (yikes!) and the Dolphins (Ryan Fitzpatrick led them in rushing… no BS). David Montgomery never had a real shot to succeed this season. Improving the offensive line could work wonders for him.
  5. Let’s save the most frustrating for last… Mitchell Trubisky. Trubisky vastly underperformed expectations this season. He threw for fewer yards than 2018, and fewer touchdowns (in more pass attempts!). That having been said, do not fear the Troobs for 2020. He supported two top-ten wide receivers in Robinson and Miller from weeks 12 through 15 (four weeks). There’s something there, Troobs just has to figure out how to do it consistently. And he needs to learn to throw to his left.
Check out the rest of the What to Remember series as it develops!

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(Header Image Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Trubisky_detroit_camrongood_2017.jpg under CC BY 4.0)

About Jeff Krisko

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