Kmet on Tory Taylor: "He's a hell of a punter" |
CHICAGO—After having one of the best statistical games of his career in Chicago’s loss against the Indianapolis Colts, tight end Cole Kmet was a bit quieter against the Los Angeles Rams this past Sunday. However, the Bears came out with a 24-18 victory.
Kmet did not care about his numbers, though. He was more satisfied with the win and the offense's physicality. “I thought a lot of good violence on tape up front, so I thought that was really good to see. Obviously, things that we just need to get cleaned up pre-snap wise if we want to stay efficient and stay ahead of the chains in that regard. But, a lot of good things, I thought, with violence on tape up front, and that showed with some of the explosives in the run game and then being able to get that first, first down in that four-minute scenario before we punted it back. Those are big. Those are tough scenarios,” Kmet said. “You’re really not getting favorable looks in the run game, and you kind of have to make it work, and I thought we did a good job there, and then when you look situationally, I thought really starting at the end of the half where they missed that field goal, and then we respond with getting three points there to go up four, that’s huge and then really from there, just playing really good football from there on out. So, all that stuff was really good.” Kmet has seen a lot with the Bears. In his rookie year, he played with former Bears quarterback Mitch Trubisky, followed by Justin Fields for the next three seasons. Now, he is with another quarterback, rookie Caleb Williams. Despite only playing four regular season games, Kmet says Williams has made a lot of progress in how he reads defenses. “I think he’s seeing things quicker now. He’s always done a good job at diagnosing the defense, but I think at first it maybe took him a few extra seconds to really see what was happening. I think he’s seeing it a little bit quicker now, recognizing that stuff, has a good understanding of he knows what he’s doing,” Kmet said. “What I’ve been impressed with is all the great stuff that he’s done obviously in college and all the crazy plays I’m sure he made throughout his college career. He’s doing a good job of just taking what the defense was giving him the other day and to do that in your fourth game is really, really impressive.” One thing that helps a rookie quarterback is having a strong punter. Tory Taylor may only be a rookie himself, but he has proven to be a smart draft selection for Chicago. Against the Rams, Taylor had five punts for an average of 55.4 yards; his longest punt was 66 yards. Through the first four games, almost half of his punts have been inside the 20-yard line. “He’s awesome. He’s fun to watch … It’s fun to watch in practice. So, it was cool,” Kmet said. “We don’t want to be in a ton of punting scenarios. But, when you got somebody like that where we know that kind of in that four-minute scenario, we get one first down, we’re in a good spot there and (we’re) able to get them to knock down some of those timeouts and Tory takes care of the rest. It’s very hard for an offense to go 92 (yards) at the end of the game like that with no timeouts, and it allows the defense to really play really aggressively in (those types) of scenarios. So, he’s a hell of a punter.”
