Five Bears regression candidates

1. Cameron Meredith

There has been a decent amount hype surrounding Meredith and what kind of upside he may have after breaking out in 2016. However, there are some reasons to pause and look back at his 2016 and wonder what his ceiling can be.

When looking at the breakdown of how Meredith accumulated his yards, the vast majority came over four games. Over those games, he had 38 catches, 482 yards, and two touchdowns. In the other 12 games, he had 28 catches, 406 yards, and two touchdowns. What stands about those four games are the quarterbacks passing attempts. In the games where Meredith put up over half of his seasons worth of stats, his team averaged 43 attempts per game. In the 12 games in which he was pedestrian, the team averaged 32 attempts per game. Given that the team is going to be a run-first team behind Jordan Howard, and hopes to have a better defense the team should be looking to keep that number in the low 30s moving forward.

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Add in Victor Cruz, Markus Wheaton, Kendall Wright and the potential of Kevin White, and he should not see the same amount of targets. Meredith is likely good as a big slot receiver, or a third option in the passing game. He likely should not be the team’s top wide receiver, and may not be that if one of the other four talented names can step up.