Bears tight end Cole Kmet suffered a season-ending knee injury on Thursday night, and the Bears’ plan for replacing him could entail putting more offensive linemen on the field.
Chicago coach Ben Johnson said he might call more plays from the “jumbo” formation with six offensive linemen. Johnson said backup offensive lineman Ozzy Trapilo, who has played sparingly this season after suffering a ruptured patellar tendon in last year’s playoffs, could get more playing time in jumbo sets.
“One solution could be, if Ozzy continues to trend up, then maybe we could do more jumbo, too,” Johnson said. “It’s not something we had to lean into, but there’s a lot of solutions out there to make sure we can still run the ball, pass protect.”
Kmet is a big loss, but the Bears may get big results from putting bigger personnel on the field. Johnson is confident that the Bears’ offense can keep humming even without Kmet.