Cole Kmet suffered a season-ending knee injury Thursday night, an announcement that will force the organization to rework its offensive approach for the remainder of the year.
Injury details and roster status
Testing confirmed that Kmet will miss the rest of the season with a right knee injury, and the team plans to place him on injured reserve, Chicago Sun-Times reported. He was carted off the field late in the fourth quarter after catching a nine-yard pass, and teammates gathered around him before he was taken to the locker room, the paper said.
After the game, coach Ben Johnson acknowledged the outlook did not look promising. Quarterback Caleb Williams, speaking after the contest, called Kmet indispensable to him and the organization: "I don't have the words to describe what Cole is to me, what Cole is to this team, this organization," Williams said, adding, "He's the longest-tenured Bear, I believe," the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
How the offense may adapt
Chicago coach Ben Johnson signaled immediate strategic adjustments, saying he might call more plays from a "jumbo" formation featuring six offensive linemen, NBC Sports reported. Johnson emphasized there are multiple ways to preserve both run production and pass protection despite the loss, telling reporters, "It's not something we had to lean into, but there's a lot of solutions out there to make sure we can still run the ball, pass protect," according to NBC Sports.
NBC Sports also reported that backup offensive lineman Ozzy Trapilo — who has played sparingly this season after suffering a ruptured patellar tendon last playoffs — could see increased snaps in jumbo sets, though that development was described as a possibility rather than a certainty. Johnson added that "one solution could be, if Ozzy continues to trend up, then maybe we could do more jumbo, too," a projection NBC Sports attributed to the coach.
Johnson expressed confidence the offense can continue functioning without Kmet, and suggested the team may gain advantages from deploying larger personnel packages, NBC Sports reported. The coach framed the shift as a practical response to personnel loss rather than a wholesale schematic overhaul.
The immediate weeks ahead will reveal how often the staff leans on six-lineman groupings and whether Trapilo or other linemen can settle into expanded roles. For now, the confirmed season-ending nature of Kmet's knee injury forces the team to blueprint alternatives and test bigger personnel against upcoming opponents.
