The Bears have consistently maintained they are pleased with the team's wide receivers, to the point that coach Lovie Smith seemed stunned by questions about the group last month at the NFL Scouting Combine.
"It's amazing," Smith said. "Bigger body, faster guy ... we're going to try to improve the receiver corps just like all our positions. But our receivers did some good things this past year. Johnny Knox had some games where he really played well. Devin Hester. Earl Bennett coming back, all played good.
"A guy like Rashied Davis, moving in as a special-teams core player and contributing. Greg Olsen. Can't say enough about what Greg Olsen did. As a receiver, just improvement at the tight end position like he made. A guy Kellen Davis. We're going to always look to improve, but we have a solid core in place right now."
The Bears talked about having five players with 40 or more receptions and how that made it difficult to defend them. It's also a refrain you'll hear from teams that lack top receivers. It's certainly not how Mike Martz offenses have stacked up in the past.
The Bears need quarterback Jay Cutler to take a step forward in 2011 in what is a passing league. They also need the receivers to step forward. Here a look at the playing time for the position last season (out of a total of 980 offensive snaps):
Aromashodu was not tendered a qualifying offer as a restricted free agent, meaning he will be unrestricted when the new league year begins. Davis is coming out of contract, so he will be unrestricted also. There is room for an addition here.
What's striking is that Knox made only five more receptions (51 to 46) than Bennett despite being on the field for 381 more plays. Bennett's production also was greater than Hester's, and the bet here is that Hester moves into a reduced offensive role in 2011, which began to happen in the latter stages of 2010.
When you examinethe playing time for Bears wide receivers in 2009, you see that some things were pretty similar in the transition from Ron Turner to Martz. Yes, Knox added nearly 400 snaps, but Hester was at 59.7 percent in 2009, although injuries contributed to that number. Aromashodu's numbers were nearly identical. Bennett saw a considerable dip after getting a position-high 772 snaps under Turner. He could be in line for more work moving forward.
Click here for a look at playing time on the defensive line. Check back throughout the day as we analyze playing time at every position.
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