There haven’t been very many happy plays for the four win Chicago Bears this year, so when tasked to find a “best of” for the 2017 Bears, I had to give it some serious thought.
Their first three wins were all pretty ugly, with the most excitement coming from rookie safety Eddie Jackson and his two 75+ yard return touchdowns in the Carolina win. But the offense that day was anemic, with the only exciting play coming from my pick for the best Bear this season, Tarik Cohen.
During that week seven game, Cohen’s 70 yard catch and run is the longest play from scrimmage the Bears have had all season long.
Cohen has been the only consistent electrifying play-maker on the Bears, as he’s provided us with plenty of “wow” moments already this year. He’s the first NFL rookie to score a rushing, receiving, passing and punt return touchdown in a single season since Bears’ Hall of Famer Gale Sayers did it in 1965.
Here’s his masterpiece from two weeks ago that gave him the fourth part of the Sayers-like superfecta.
.@TarikCohen ran a total of 127 YARDS on that ridiculous punt return TD! #NextGenStats #DaBears pic.twitter.com/Kd3UqKARJD
— NFL (@NFL) December 5, 2017
Notice the word choice — ridiculous — in the NFL’s tweet?
We see what you did there NFL.
Last week was Mitchell Trubisky’s break out game, but a closer look at the box score and we see Cohen’s fingerprints all over the win too.
He had twelve runs for eighty yards (6.7 ypc), and two catches for five, but he also had two long touchdowns negated. One because his foot narrowly touched the white, and the other from a penalty.
The Bears used Cohen all over the offense as well as on special teams, and his versatility will make him an integral part of the team for the next several years.