Bears Lose Cole Kmet to IR After Brutal Thursday Night Knee Injury

The Chicago Bears managed to survive Thursday Night Football with a 30-24 win over the New England Patriots, but the victory tax was incredibly steep. Tight end Cole Kmet is officially heading to injured reserve after suffering a serious right knee injury in the fourth quarter.

When a guy cannot put any weight on his leg and leaves the field on a medical cart wearing a brace, you do not need a medical degree to know the MRI machine is going to deliver bad news. ESPN's Adam Schefter confirmed the IR move, meaning Kmet is shelved for at least the next four games, though the cart ride suggests a much longer vacation.

"Adam Schefter reported the Bears are placing Kmet on IR due to the serious knee injury."

From a pure box-score perspective, Kmet has not exactly been the engine of the Chicago offense this season. He is currently sitting on just seven catches for 59 yards and a single touchdown for the year.

He was seeing two or fewer targets in most of his recent games. That is less weekly volume than the backup punter gets throwing balls into the net on the sideline.

But real football is not played on a fantasy app. Losing a 6-foot-6, 257-pound tight end who knows the blocking scheme completely changes the math for the Bears.

For anyone holding Chicago futures or sweating their weekly team totals at the sportsbook, this is a quiet disaster. Removing a massive in-line blocker and red-zone safety valve forces the rest of the depth chart to step up and actually block an edge rusher.

Chicago now has to scramble to patch together a tight end rotation before their next game. If they cannot find someone to anchor the edge, their quarterback is going to spend the next month running for his life.