Bears Ranks in Top-15 of the NFL in Playmakers for 2026 Season
Chicago Bears quarterback Caleb Williams had a variety of weapons to utilize last season. Where does the group of playmakers rank going into the 2026 season?
Video Transcript
What's going on everybody?
Nicholas Moriano here from Bears Roundtable Sports.
For today's video, we look into ESPN's recent article that ranked their top playmakers for each team going into the 2026 NFL season.
ESPN's Bill Barnwell has released his annual playmaker group rankings for years now, and he assessed the team's best essentially five-man unit.
Exclude the quarterbacks, so this is gonna be your wide receivers, your tight ends, and your running backs.
And some things to be mindful of with these rankings, two ground rules that Bill Barnwell puts in his article.
He emphasizes when he makes these rankings that injuries are a thing.
Those will be accounted for when making the groupings and the rankings for each individual player and their team.
And then the wide receivers are, quote, "weighted more heavily than running backs or tight ends, so our rankings prioritize teams with great wide receivers over those who have better options at running back and tight end."
So, when you factor that into the equation, the Chicago Bears in this list, these rankings come in at number 15 in the NFL, right in the middle there.
In that last part that I mentioned, that wide receivers are weighted more heavily than running backs and tight ends, well, when you think about it right now, that's a big part of the strength of the Chicago Bears, their run game and those tight ends.
Colston Loveling, Cole Kmet, D'Andre Swift, Kyle Monangai, those definitely play a factor in the Bears offense.
But when looking at the overall rankings, they're not weighted as heavily as, well, Luther Burden or Rome Odunze.
And Luther, towards the back half or to- once he started getting more opportunities, especially when Rome Odunze went down, which factors into the equation here, look, he was the guy that finished fourth among wide receivers with 2.9 yards per route run, a player that's ascending and should have a bigger role with DJ Morgan.
But Rome Odunze didn't quite have the second year in the NFL that he was anticipating because of the injury that he had in his foot.
So when you think about where the Bears are ranked at, number 15, that easily could be higher if tight ends and running backs are weighted more, weighted more in this ranking.
But why Bill Barnwell and ESPN did it this way, it's like, think about it, wide receivers just get paid more than both those position groups in general.
But if the Bears wide receivers, Burden, put, putting Kalif Raymond as well, Odunze take that another step this upcoming season, then there's no reason why this group of playmakers, which is a young core, won't be even higher on the list when it all s- is said and done in another year of Johnson's offense.
But it does, I think, diminish what the Bears have as playmakers because the tight ends and running backs, like I said, are heavily involved in what the Bears like to run offensively.
But what do you think?
Is number 15 too high, too low for what the Bears came in at at this recent ranking?
