Cole Kmet’s Season Ends, and Chicago’s Tight End Plan Starts

Chicago placed tight end Cole Kmet on injured reserve Friday after a right knee injury ended his season in a 30-24 win over New England. Testing that morning confirmed what coach Ben Johnson had feared on the Soldier Field sideline.

The Bears are 5-2 and second in the NFC North. They also just lost the veteran who made their favorite personnel grouping legal, on a roster that already holds two drafted tight ends and a $15.425 million cap charge for him in 2027.

A Thumbs-Up Through the Northwest Tunnel

With 5:46 left in the fourth quarter, Kmet caught an 8-yard pass from Caleb Williams in the right flat, turned upfield along the home sideline, and went down grabbing his right knee. Patriots cornerback Christian Gonzalez and linebacker Robert Spillane arrived on the tackle. Ian Rapoport later described the play as a non-contact injury, the joint giving before the hits landed.

He could not put weight on the leg. Teammates, and former Bear Kevin Byard III in a Patriots uniform, gathered while the cart rolled out. Kmet flashed a thumbs-up as he went through the northwest tunnel. He had caught all three of his targets for 28 yards. The Bears still closed out the 30-24 win.

THE NIGHT THE KNEE GAVE WAY

1. October 22, 2026: Kmet goes down at 5:46 of the fourth quarter after an 8-yard catch and is carted off. Johnson tells reporters the injury did not look very good.
2. October 23, morning: Further testing. Rapoport reports a serious, likely season-ending right knee injury, with no finality until the results are in.
3. October 23, afternoon: Johnson answers “yes” when asked if the injury is season-ending. Chicago places Kmet on injured reserve and activates defensive end Montez Sweat from the reserve/suspended list.

Johnson did not name the structure that failed. No public note has listed an ACL, an MCL, or a meniscus. The designation was enough: season-ending injured reserve, the rest of 2026 gone.

I don’t have the words to describe what Cole is to me, what Cole is to this team, this organization. He’s the longest-tenured Bear, I believe. And so he’s been through it. And it’s challenging. He’s tough. And I’ll be with him. I’ll be right there with him through every step of whatever the injury is.

Caleb Williams, Bears quarterback, after the Patriots game

The league’s own account posted the IR move Friday night.

Bears TE Cole Kmet headed to IR with "serious" knee injury, per HC Ben Johnson. pic.twitter.com/x5cFFVXck5

— NFL (@NFL) October 23, 2026

Chicago Puts Extra Tight Ends on Half Its Plays

Kmet’s receiving line this season is 10 catches for 87 yards and one touchdown on 14 targets in seven games, with three starts. That is not why Johnson kept two and three tight ends on the field. Sharp Football’s 2026 tracking, updated October 20, has Chicago using two or more tight ends on 53 percent of 432 offensive plays, the second-highest rate of extra tight ends in the league. Only Las Vegas sits ahead. The NFL average is 36 percent.

HOW CHICAGO HAS LINED UP THIS SEASON

Those 13-personnel snaps, 77 of them in the sample, need three healthy tight ends. Johnson said Friday the offense is not going to change a whole lot. The depth chart no longer matches that sentence unless someone else becomes the third body.

He’s everything we want to be about here. He’s one of the glue guys. He’s one of the guys that I can count on, whether it’s a messaging standpoint or getting the pulse of the team. He’s going to be sorely missed.

Ben Johnson, Bears head coach, Friday briefing

Johnson also said Kmet was consistently one of the highest-graded players on the offense, week in and week out. The grade lived in the run game and in those 12 and 13 looks, not in the target sheet. “The train keeps rolling along,” he said. “Someone else has to step up.”

The Targets Already Belonged to Loveland

Colston Loveland, the 10th pick in the 2025 draft out of Michigan, was already the pass-catching tight end. He has 26 catches for 244 yards and two touchdowns on 42 targets through seven games. Thursday he led the team with 12 targets, catching seven for 69 yards and a 12-yard score. Over the last two games he has 13 catches, 134 yards, and two touchdowns.

Kmet’s share of that passing game had been shrinking since Loveland arrived. He caught 73 passes for 719 yards and six scores in 2023, then 47 for 474 in 2024, then 30 for 347 with two touchdowns in 16 games last season. This year’s 10-87-1 line is the next step down that slope, not a new one.

TIGHT END PRODUCTION THROUGH WEEK 7

Loveland is on the field for about three of every four offensive snaps. Kmet was on for a little more than half. The receiving job does not move much with Kmet in the training room. The blocking job in 12 and 13 personnel does.

Who Plays Tight End for Chicago Now?

Rookie third-round pick Sam Roush is the only other healthy tight end on the 53-man roster besides Loveland. Johnson said the staff has been very pleased with the improvement Roush has made. The Stanford product, taken 69th overall, is on a four-year rookie contract from Stanford worth $7,336,666. He has three catches for 33 yards on five targets and has played 19 percent of the offensive snaps.

THE NEXT BODIES IN THE TIGHT END ROOM

• Sam Roush: The 6-foot-6, 267-pound rookie becomes TE2 and the first extra blocker in 12 personnel.
• Stephen Carlson or Qadir Ismail: Johnson named both practice-squad tight ends as options to be promoted onto the 53-man.
• Ozzy Trapilo: The swing tackle is Johnson’s jumbo idea, a third tight end in heavy packages without using another roster tight end.
• Hayden Large: The undrafted rookie opened the year on the active roster and is on injured reserve, so he is not in this mix.

Thirteen personnel was 18 percent of the offense in Sharp’s sample. That look now depends on a promotion, a tackle in a tight end stance, or a quieter rate than Johnson has used. He offered the Trapilo route himself. The cleaner path is Roush plus one practice-squad call-up, with Loveland staying in the core of the passing game.

The Cap Number Waiting in 2027

Kmet, 27, is an Arlington Heights product in the larger sense Johnson meant when he said, “Really, he’s Chicago. He’s been here his whole life, and he’s a big part of our heartbeat.” The Bears took him in the second round in 2020, 43rd overall, out of Notre Dame, the same round as cornerback Jaylon Johnson. He had missed only one game across seven NFL seasons.

On July 26, 2023, he signed a four-year, $50 million extension with a $12.5 million average and $22.893 million fully guaranteed at signing. Free agency is not until 2028. This year’s cap charge is $7,775,000. Next year’s is $15.425 million, the largest number on the deal.

That 2027 figure is not an accident. In April the Bears converted $7.65 million of his $8.9 million salary into a bonus, cutting about $3.8 million off the 2026 charge and adding the same amount to 2027. They entered draft week with the least cap space in the league. The restructure bought room. It also made next March expensive for a blocking tight end behind two drafted players.

Cutting him in 2027 would save about $10 million against $5.4 million in dead money. Nothing in Friday’s remarks pointed that way. Nothing in the cap sheet makes a $15.425 million TE2 easy to keep, either, after a serious knee injury and a season that already gave Loveland the targets and Roush a real snap share. A pay cut is a third path. So is a reunion on a rewritten deal. Those are winter questions. The injury just moved them closer.

What the Run Game Loses Without Him

Chicago leads the NFL with 1,080 rushing yards in seven games, 4.4 yards per carry, and 14 rushing touchdowns, tied with Buffalo for the most. That is 154.3 yards a game. D’Andre Swift has 476 yards and seven rushing scores. Kyle Monangai has 324. The Bears average 25.7 points (eighth) and allow 20.4 (eighth), with 180 points for and 143 against.

THE 5-2 SNAPSHOT

• Record: 5-2, second in the NFC North behind Minnesota at 5-0, with Green Bay 4-2 and Detroit 3-2.
• Rushing: 246 carries, 1,080 yards, 14 touchdowns, 55 rushing first downs, six fumbles.
• Heavy looks: 53 percent of plays with two or more tight ends, 18 percent with three.
• Next up: at Seattle on Monday, November 2, then Tampa Bay on November 8, then a Week 10 bye.

Johnson’s 12 and 13 personnel exists to put an extra hat on the edge for Swift and Monangai and to force a defense to declare coverage before the snap. Losing the Y tight end he trusted most does not erase 1,080 yards already banked. It does ask Roush, and whoever gets the third helmet, to hold up on the same volume of extra-tight-end snaps that made this run game the league’s heaviest.

Sweat Walks Into the Open Roster Spot

The 53-man opening Kmet left went to Montez Sweat, back from a two-game suspension tied to diuretics or other masking agents. Chicago had 11 sacks in five games with Sweat active and seven sacks in the two games he missed. The defense gets its edge rusher back. The offense gives up its longest-tenured skill player on the same piece of paper.

Johnson still talks as if the call sheet stays put. Loveland will see the same routes. Roush will see more of the in-line work Kmet had been doing on 55 percent of the snaps. Carlson or Ismail may punch a ticket off the practice squad. Trapilo may line up as a third tight end when the Bears want jumbo without a fourth tight end on the roster.

Monday night in Seattle is 11 days after the catch that ended Kmet’s season. Chicago will walk in 5-2, with the NFL’s leading rushing yardage total and two healthy tight ends on the 53-man, plus a $15.425 million number on the 2027 ledger that no longer has a 2026 tape attached to it.