With five touchdowns over the first four games last season, Chicago Bears wide receiver Rome Odunze seemed set to pay off the preseason breakout buzz around him in a big way.
Things faded after that, though. Eventually, it revealed he had been playing with a stress fracture in his foot for a while before he finally missed a game in Week 14. He was able to return for the playoffs, but outside of one amazing and critical play, he was clearly still not close to 100 percent healthy.
An offseason to get his foot injury right will automatically benefit Odunze. The trade of DJ Moore to the Buffalo Bills also naturally ratchets up the pressure on him to perform like a top-10 pick. While specific data regarding drops differs from source to source, Odunze has had way too many "shoulda caught that" plays.
One data point shows how much Rome Odunze was impacted by his foot injury
In response to Ian Hartitz of Fantasy Life reiterating how Odunze was the WR12 in PPR fantasy points per game from Week 1-8 last season, Kyle Menton of Fantasy Points offered a deeper piece of data that shows the dramatic, and expected, difference the foot injury made.
@FantasyPtsData has proof that Odunze's heel injury likely caused a significant decline in his play as early as Week 8!
— Kyle (@KyleM_FF) April 28, 2026
0.452 Average Separation Score vs. Man Coverage in Weeks 1-7 (WR1)
0.038 Average Separation Score vs. Man Coverage in Weeks 8-13 (WR70)
If Odunze can… https://t.co/idGZRcw5kl
Week 9 was the first time Odunze showed up on the injury report with that heel/foot injury. He notably went catchless in that game, despite the Bears' scoring 47 points with 576 total yards against the Cincinnati Bengals, with two of his three targets among those aforementioned "gotta catch that" plays. He had 13 catches on 31 targets over the next four games, then he missed the final five regular season games.
How the Bears handled Odunze's injury for multiple weeks is its own question. But he deserves ample praise for gutting through an injury that clearly limited his effectiveness, until he just couldn't do it any longer. There was a brief chance he would miss only one game, but that proved overly optimistic.
Read more: Draft analyst's insight says supposed Bears' draft reach wasn't a reach at all
Odunze has plenty of runway to be a have post-hype breakout season this year. Having two full functioning feet, and all the basic residuals that would follow, will go a long way toward making it happen.
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