No one in NFL history has ever done less with more.
When Bears running back Tarik Cohen caught 79 passes for a mere 5.77 yards per reception last year, he set an all-time record for futility among high-volume receivers. The only man to average fewer yards, former Saints running back Reggie Bush, had 73 catches in 2007.
No one, then, has ever caught so many passes and gained so few yards.
The Bears are spending their offseason trying to restore to the Tarik mystique of the previous two seasons. The answer — in descending order of simplicity — lies in a combination of performance, preparation and play-calling.
Cohen needs to hang on to the ball. Last year, only three players dropped more passes than his nine, according to Fox Sports. In 2018, he had one.
Cohen said Thursday his body deteriorated more, and faster, toward the end of the season. His hips were tight — and because of that, his lower back hurt.
“I’ve been doing yoga now, stretching more often and just like the small training room, in-house things you do to keep your body durable,” he said. “And to keep the wear-and-tear of the season off of you longer.”
Why not do that during the season? In his first two years, Cohen said, he had veteran Benny Cunningham to remind him to take care of his body. Last year, he was gone.
“I really slacked on that. …” Cohen said. “I always had older guys that would keep me on that, keep me in line.”
Entering his fourth season, Cohen knows he shouldn’t need to be nagged by vets. He vowed to be a leader this season, and to be the one nagging younger players to get to treatment.
The more complicated question is the Bears’ play-calling.
Cohen averaged 6.2 rushes per game and 4.5 yards per carry in Nagy’s first year and four carries for 3.3 yards in 2019. Even more amazingly: He caught 71 balls in 2018 for an average of 10.2 yards. Last year he caught 79 passes for about half that.
“For him, you look at numbers right away,” coach Matt Nagy said. “You look at our offensive numbers right away and there are a lot of things … You could look across the board at every position and say we struggled. …
“We don’t care anymore about 2019. We don’t care about 2018.”
Cohen, though, suspects the Bears do.
“I feel like we’ll probably go back to the things we were doing in 2018,” he said. “I feel like we’re just going to simplify things. I feel like at times we just made things too hard on ourselves and we didn’t have people guessing. I feel like we were kind of just showing our cards a little bit.”
That predictability, he said, should change because of the team’s new staff. Nagy will still call plays, but he added offensive coordinator Bill Lazor, quarterbacks coach John DeFilippo and offensive line coach Juan Castillo to his brain trust.
Nagy is a momentum play-caller — his creativity emerged in 2018 when things were going, while the Bears’ offense was both bad and boring last year. Cohen, more than any player on the team, benefits when his coach plays mad scientist.
Linebackers typically cover Cohen when he was in the backfield, while cornerbacks — and the occasional safety — followed at receiver. Each team, though, devises a unique game plan for the Bears’ second-most dangerous offensive player.
It’s the coaching staff’s job to counter it in real time.
“[I’m] already seeing the things [Lazor] has planned for us,” Cohen said. “It’s going to be hard to tell who’s getting the ball and when or how they’re getting the ball, too.”
Cohen knows what’s at stake — he’s a free agent after the season ends.
“I feel like I can’t put any pressure on nobody else,” he said. “It’s all on me.”
