Chicago Bears: WR Overhaul Could Hatch Jordan Howard Breakout

The sheer magnitude of the wide receiver transition for the Chicago Bears in 2018 is staggering. It’s almost an entirely new position group.

Out of the 10 currently signed on the roster heading towards training camp, only three of them were there at the end of last season. Those are Kevin White, Josh Bellamy and Tanner Gentry. The rest were added over the course of this off-season. Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, Bennie Fowler and Marlon Brown arrived via free agency. Anthony Miller and Javon Wims were scooped up in the 2nd and 7th rounds of the draft respectively.

The primary goal of this was obvious enough. They wanted to give quarterback Mitch Trubisky every opportunity to be a success this season and beyond. One can safely say the Bears have never made this sort of massive investment in the quarterback in one off-season before. The 2012 run was the closest they came when they traded for Brandon Marshall and drafted Alshon Jeffery. Those moves certainly worked out in their favor.

Yet there is a lovely side effect to this sort of operation. While it’s geared towards the quarterback, the running back ends up benefitting almost as much.

Jordan Howard stands to benefit big time from new receiver additions

Matt Forte can attest to this. The first year that Jeffery and Marshall played together for a full season in 2013, the former Bears running back had the best year of his NFL career. He rushed for 1,339 yards, caught a then career-high 74 passes for 594 yards and tied his career-high with 12 touchdowns. This could be the sort of spring that awaits Jordan Howard if the Bears’ plan comes to fruition.

So far through two seasons, Howard has been a workhorse. He’s gone over 1,000 yards twice and made the Pro Bowl once. Yet it feels like he can do more. Much of that time he’s had to play against heavy defensive fronts. According to the website Player Profiler, Howard has faced a front stacked front (8 or more in box) on 6.1% of his carries and a base front (7 in the box) on 64.5%. This means he’s only seen light fronts (6 or fewer in box) on 29.4% of his touches.

That’s not good. Why? The simple fact that whenever he’s seen a light front, he’s decimated them. Over the past two years, Howard is averaging a whopping 5.85 yards per carry against boxes with six or fewer defenders in them.

The reason for this is Howard’s greatest strength:  vision. He’s superb at seeing where the hole develops and working his way through it. That’s why he’s such a great zone scheme runner. Teams were able to avoid those situations last year because they had no reason to fear the Bears passing game. It was dead last in the NFL. This time they may not enjoy such good fortune with names like Robinson, Gabriel, and Miller roaming the field. Not to mention Adam Shaheen and Trey Burton at tight end.

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This was undoubtedly one of the endgames for the Bears. Trubisky was the priority, but they knew full well what could happen with Howard if they managed to pull this overhaul off.