Nothing funny for Bears opponents regarding Ben Johnson's 'Joker'

“He's a little bit of a unicorn," Johnson said of Kmet. "You can put him all over the place, in line to outside the numbers slot, I think you can move him around quite a bit. I think the beauty of having him outside the numbers is if you get him matched up on a safety or a linebacker even, then that's going to be a favor for us.

"You know, that's going to be a good thing. He's going to be able to win those matchups on a consistent basis. He's such a large target that if you put it somewhere close to him, he will find a way to come down with it.”

Kmet showed up in the last Bears scrimmage lined up wide. He also was involved with a play opponents would definitely not want to see. He peeled off of a chip block and came free to the side at the line of scrimmage just when Williams ascertained the coverage took away primary targets. He quickly dumped it off to Kmet.

It wasn't a live full-contact drill because if it was Bears DBs would have been saddled with stopping a hard-charging, 6-foot-6, 260-pound tight end with a good had start on tem. Good luck with that. 

Kmet most likely will get fewer catches than in recent years and fewer targets, but he's more likely to have more run-after-the-catch opportunities now. Running a 5-yard hook with a linebacker draped on his back as he faces the QB had become the Shane Waldron attack.

“How creative Ben is, you've seen that in Detroit and how detail-oriented he is within the offense, his knowledge in general is just great," Kmet said. "So, there's a lot of things that even when we've come back from this summer break here–maybe some tweaks here and there on some routes that we've seen that they looked over in terms of how we ran him in the spring—and kind of adjusting them to whether it's to help us get open better or scheme open guys better.

"It's just really cool to kind of see that progression and that growth within the offense."

Kmet paired with Loveland in 12-personnel is a curiosity. Of course Loveland is going downfield. How would they use Kmet in that case?

It's all a matter of conjecture because in Detroit Johnson didn't have a second tight end who had made 70 catches in a season before, or who had 19 TD catches or last year's league-high for tight ends of 85% receptions per target.

Kmet acknowledges there are ways Loveland takes away targets.

"I think there’s naturally areas where we’re going to compete with one another just because we’re in the same position and we’re both pass catchers," he said. "I always feel like, despite if you’re a tight end, running back, receiver, we’re all competing with one another for certain roles within the offense.

"Nowadays they can put you anywhere. So as long as you can show the coaches that you can handle certain things, they’re going to put you all over the field. There’s aspects that are competition and then there’s aspects where I think we’re going to be able to complement each other’s game really well."

Of course, Johnson doesn't want to reveal anything about his plans for Kmet, but did give him another positional name beyond unicorn.

“I think it's his skill set and you're always looking for those types of guys—Sean Payton has a special name," Johnson said. "A 'joker' is what he calls them in his offense, and guys that you can move around a lot and uses as a chess piece. Those are fun guys to play with.”

Kmet may have never thought of himself as a chess piece but moving around can't be a bad thing if it's going to get him touches in an offense where there are likely to be plenty of options for Caleb Williams and not enough footballs, with DJ Moore, Rome Odunze, Burden, Olamide Zaccheaus and D'Andre Swift available besides the tight ends.