Analysis: Bears free agent tight ends Robert Tonyan Jr. and Marcedes Lewis weren’t used much and changing offensive coordinators can impact this position.
Franchise tags are applied for on February 22 and teams have until March 5 at 3 p.m. on Monday to have one in place before the free agency period ends.
Add defensive back Josh Blackwell, an exclusive rights free agent, to the Bears’ roster of eighteen unrestricted free agents. This basically indicates that he only needs a new deal and isn’t really a free agent.
Eight UFAs are offensive players, and for many of these players, the shift in their offensive approach is a critical factor to take into account.
Compared to Luke Getsy’s time with the Bears, new offensive coordinator Shane Waldron has utilized his second and third tight ends as receivers more frequently in Seattle. Additionally, Robert Tonyan Jr. and Marcedes Lewis, the team’s second and third tight ends, are two of the Bears’ free agents.
In actuality, Getsy’s offense is the reason Tonyan and Lewis joined the Bears. Because they had lived in Green Bay during Getsy’s tenure as the Packers’ quarterbacks coach, they were thought to have a deeper understanding of the system and a higher likelihood of picking it up fast.
Lewis had five targets and Tonyan had 17, so they hardly ever threw to either of them. Tonyan had 11 receptions and Lewis had 4. With just 13 targets for three players, they threw even less to tight ends in Getsy’s rookie season than they did to Cole Kmet.
While the Bears under Getsy made better use of all of their tight ends in the passing game, Waldron’s attack had superior wide receivers.
Last year, Colby Parkinson, Will Dissly, and Noah Fant combined for 99 targets, with none of them hitting more than 43. Fant had 63 targets in 2022, Dissly had 38, and Parkinson had 34. Gerald Everett had 63 targets in the first year Russell Wilson started throwing passes, Dissly had 26, and Parkinson had eight.
Though this isn’t to say Tonyan or Lewis couldn’t do this—after all, they didn’t do it last year, and that was an offense they were familiar with—the second and third tight ends will obviously need to play larger roles.
Money isn’t a major concern for the Bears as they evaluate their two and three tight ends in free agency because, together, they took up $4.7 million of the cap space from the previous campaign.
The job will be crucial, and the former offensive coordinator for the Seahawks may want someone with familiarity with his playbook to play in it, much like Getsy did with Tonyan and Lewis.
If that’s the case, it’s reasonable to assume that the Bears will seek one or more Seahawks tight ends as a backup or third choice after Kmet. Everett, the former Seahawks tight end who spent one season playing for the Rams in the same offense as assistant coach Brent Waldron, is also free to sign with any team. All three of the tight ends are unrestricted.