Kmet: “None of us in here are playing for draft picks” |
CHICAGO - As one of the players who has spent the most time on the Chicago Bears roster, tight end Cole Kmet has witnessed a lot. Back during his rookie season, the Bears made the playoffs. When Matt Eberflus was the head coach, Kmet was part of Chicago’s historic 14-game losing streak.
Now, they are on their way to another historic losing streak, having lost their last seven games. “It’s been a lot. This isn’t easy. For me, a lot of individual, mental battles you go through in your head. I feel like I’ve definitely been through a lot here and I’ve been through my fair share of losing streaks and this is definitely not easy,” Kmet said. “This has definitely been a mental battle and trying to grind through this from a mental standpoint and in terms of everything, just from my standpoint, that I’ve been through and trying to deal with this and I know that there’s areas that I look at myself where I got to be better and I got to do a better job and I got to do more on the field and it’s just tough to be in this spot right now because I’ve been in this (situation) before and it’s just (tough) to see things going down the way that they have been. But, this is the situation that we’re in.” The most recent loss came against the San Francisco 49ers in Chicago’s largest loss of the season in a 38-13 embarrassment. 49ers’ head coach Kyle Shanahan has a habit of dismantling defenses, but this game was different. Shanahan out-coached the Bears; San Francisco out-played Chicago. They were more physical, talented, and coordinated. San Francisco scouted the Bears and executed perfectly, especially in the first half. “Obviously, have to give (the 49ers) credit for some of the calls they had defensively early in the game, really looking at (the) first half. (They) were in some good looks there against some of the run schemes and some of the pass schemes on third down. So, just got to give credit to them on some of the calls that they were in against some of the things that we presented,” Kmet said. “As players, it just comes down to executing, being better in the execution and we said a lot about that throughout the year. But, we just got to be better there and execute better early on in order to get the fast start that we want.” Chicago was a little shorthanded at running back when they faced San Francisco as Roschon Johnson was out with a concussion and Travis Homer was forced to exit early with a head injury. Normally in a situation like this, the $8 million running back would step up and lead the rushing attack. That is not what D’Andre Swift did for the Bears. He has not put up over 100 scrimmage yards since Chicago’s week eight loss to the Washington Commanders. The last time he scored a touchdown was four games ago against the Green Bay Packers. When Johnson and eventually Homer were out against San Francisco, he had 40 scrimmage yards; that was his second-lowest total of the season. Swift cannot play like that against the Minnesota Vikings on Mon. Dec. 16 (7 p.m. / ABC) as the Bears try to end their losing streak. “We got to be able to run the ball and we haven’t really done that too well in the past few weeks,” Kmet said. “So, we got to be able to run the ball on these guys and just execute when it comes down to them showing their pressure looks and all those things. So, we just got to be on the details in that regard.” Going into this game, Chicago currently holds the No. 9 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. With only four wins, the Bears are in a position to draft an elite player. Winning could hurt their draft position, but that is not something Kmet or anyone else in the locker room cares about. “None of us in here are playing for draft picks,” Kmet said. “That’s not anything that the players in the locker room care about.”
