Chicago Bears: Way-too-early prediction of 2021 Week 1 offensive starters

David Montgomery will be the Chicago Bears Week 1 starter at running back

This was one of the easiest ones to predict on offense. There is no question that David Montgomery will be the Week 1 starter for the Chicago Bears versus the Rams. Montgomery proved to be one of the better running backs in the NFL last year. He was fifth in the league with 1,070 rushing yards and tied for eighth with 71.3 rushing yards per game.

Montgomery finished the year with eight rushing touchdowns and two receiving touchdowns. He added another 438 receiving yards to his overall total too. Montgomery is a true, three-down back, but the Bears are still likely to limit his touches to some degree. To do this, we should see Tarik Cohen back in action catching balls out of the backfield and slot. Damien Williams is likely to be the third running back on the depth chart to start the season too.

Cole Kmet will be the Chicago Bears Week 1 starter at tight end

There are some unsubstantiated rumors floating around that the Chicago Bears expect Jimmy Graham to take a pay cut or they will be forced to cut him due to salary cap issues. This really won’t matter in the grand scheme of things though. Cole Kmet will be the Chicago Bears Week 1 starter at tight end, while Jimmy Graham would be second on the depth chart.

We saw a shift last season as Graham was TE1 to start the year, but as time went on, Kmet took over snaps. The shift took place around Week 10 when Kmet saw 35 offensive snaps and Graham only saw 29. After the bye week in Week 11, Kmet’s snap count jumped even more as he averaged just over 59 snaps per game. Jimmy Graham on the other hand only saw an average of 30 snaps per game. Kmet is the easy answer here.