Chicago Bears: Kevin White fails to gain confidence
Chicago Bears wide receiver Kevin White is healthy. Now, he is looking to have confidence in himself to make the 53-man roster
Everybody seems to know the story around Kevin White by now. On the field, it is impossible to say that he is a bust because he has never been healthy enough to get himself on the field long enough.
However, entering training camp in what is now a contract year, Kevin White is fully healthy. He was rested with the starters in the Hall of Fame game and put on the field with the starters in preseason Week One.
Momentum was trending in the right direction. And then White was overthrown on a deep pass and dropped a third-down target. The drop does not sound like devastating or groundbreaking stuff. However, the drop and miscommunication certainly hurt a player like White.
When White has been healthy, a mantra around him has been instilling confidence. Early into his career, it was confidence to come back from the injury. Then, it was the idea that he needs to have confidence in his ability to run routes.
This summer, Matt Nagy came in and once again talked about confidence with White. He wants White to have fun, and not worry about the expectations he has not hit as a first-round pick.
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It is worth noting that multiple coaches have talked about the need to instill confidence in him in different areas of the game. He seems to be a player who now is not only battling that injury bug but also battling his psyche.
It is tough to set high expectations for yourself to see you physically fail to reach them. It has caused White to press and put only more pressure on himself. From there, it has spiraled out of his control.
So the drop was not a significant talking point the following morning. However, it should be noted. It was a great chance to boost the confidence of White, and it fell by the way side. In fact, it likely only pushed his confidence down more.
After the game, White said it was just an issue of “making the easy plays easy.”
Coming into the regular season, the Chicago Bears need to find some way to instill confidence in Kevin White. If they can’t, they cannot be confident in using him on Sundays. So far, overall confidence is low on both sides.