Will Chicago Bears wide receiver Anthony Miller finally put it together in 2020?
The Chicago Bears have questions at wide receiver. They have a very good No. 1 in Allen Robinson but don’t know what they have with the other options.
Of the 566 passes thrown by Bears quarterbacks, 154 of them targeted Robinson for a total of 27.2 percent. The next closest in targets wasn’t even a wide receiver. It was running back Tarik Cohen’s 104 for 18.4 percent. The next receiver in total targets was Anthony Miller with 85 (15 percent).
Miller is an interesting subject. He was the Bears’ second-round draft pick in 2018. He had a promising rookie campaign, leading rookies in touchdowns with seven. He hurt his shoulder and wasn’t productive late in the season.
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In his first 10 games, Miller had 29 catches for 398 yards and five touchdowns. He averaged 13.7 yards per catch. In his final five games, however, he only caught four passes for 25 yards. Out of the four catches, two of them were for touchdowns, though.
In 2019, many expected Miller to build on the promising rookie season. He floundered out of the gate. In his first four games, he only had four catches for 28 yards, getting targeted only eight times. That included no catches on just one target in the Week 1 matchup against the Green Bay Packers. It extended to his first nine games, where he recorded just 18 catches for 218 yards and no touchdowns.
He then got hot in his next four games, making 33 catches for 431 yards and two touchdowns, including a 140-yard effort against the Detroit Lions on Thanksgiving Day and a 118-yard game with a touchdown in the second game against the Packers in Week 15. The injury bug hit again, however, and he had just two catches for seven yards in his final two games.
Anthony Miller Hasn’t been a dependable target for the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago Bears are desperate for Miller to be the dependable target after Robinson. Just because he was second to Robinson last season doesn’t mean he was a dependable target. He was just as likely to look out of sorts as he was to be locked in and have a 100-yard game. H needs to be more consistent if the Bears are to feel more confident in him.
Part of the reason for Miller’s inconsistencies has been his attitude to preparation. Wide receivers coach Mike Furrey didn’t hold back when talking about Miller’s performance last season, per NBC Sports Chicago:
"The first quarter to half of the season last year, I just don’t think from a maturity standpoint, preparation standpoint, that Anthony was 100 percent all in. He still had that college mentality that ability was gonna allow him to overcome whatever he wanted to overcome in games…we’re watching the Packers game sitting there thinking, ‘One of our best players is not on the field, and the reason why is because you can’t trust him."
Miller agrees with that assessment, per the team’s official websit;
"When I was drafted, I was just thinking of the game as just going out there and playing. Not really paying attention to the depth of my route or the most small details of this game, and I was really just going out there and running and playing. But when you really understand the game and the concepts of the play and what kind of defense is back there, then it puts you on another level."
This offseason, Miller appears to have matured and is being more of a professional. He understands now that playing professionally doesn’t mean being a professional. In college, you can pass on just your abilities. There are times when you’re going up against players that just aren’t on your level. In the NFL, no matter who you play, you play among the best week after week.
Miller is also learning from Robinson as well. He sees how Robinson pays attention to the minute details of his position. Miller now understands that when you take care of the little things your performance jumps to new heights. He’s now more involved in the meetings and learning the intricacies of running routes.
If Miller does have his breakout season in 2020 it will make this offense more dynamic. The Bears have Ted Ginn, Riley Ridley, Darnell Mooney and Javon Wims to round out the wide receivers unit.
Ginn and Mooney are speedsters, but Ginn is in his final years and Mooney is a rookie. Ridley has some ability but he didn’t play much in his rookie season last year. Miller is a big key to the offense. If some of the others can contribute it’ll be good, but the Bears need for Miller to be a bigger part of the offense than he has been in his first two seasons.
It takes a lot for a player who was as great as Miller was with Mephis to suddenly not be the big man on campus. Miller deserves credit (no matter how long it finally took) for realizing that he now needs to work a lot harder if he wants to be a great player on the professional level. If he finally gets it together, it’ll be fun to watch him grow.