If you are looking for a sleeper from the 2026 NFL Draft class, look no further than Chicago Bears tight end Sam Roush.
In a post at ESPN, Field Yates lists Day 2 and Day 3 NFL Draft picks who could be immediate contributors to their team in 2026. There, you’ll find a mention of the Stanford product among the under-the-radar selections to keep tabs on this season.
More from Yates, who explains why Sam Roush is in line for a bigger role than what you might otherwise expect from a Day 2 rookie who is the third tight end on the depth chart behind Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet:
Roush has an assortment of tight end skills, being a premium athlete for his 6-foot-5, 260-pound size. He figures to assume the valuable TE3 role that Durham Smythe played for the Bears last season, along with being a major special teams factor.
Roush should see the field plenty considering that Smythe played 25% of Chicago’s offensive snaps and 50% of its special teams snaps in 2025.
It isn’t just that Sam Roush will be eating up the snaps that were given to Durham Smythe last year. However, that is a key piece of the puzzle. But for me, it’s that things are lining up for Roush to be part of a philosophical shift in the Bears’ offense. This team ran 360 plays in 12 personnel (1 RB, 2 WR, 2 TE) last season, according to data from Sumer Sports. Only the Cleveland Browns and Atlanta Falcons operated out of 12 personnel more often.
Bears tight end Colston Loveland. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn ImagesAnd when it came to 13 personnel, the Bears’ 94 plays ranked fifth-most, behind the Los Angeles Rams, Pittsburgh Steelers, Arizona Cardinals, and Indianapolis Colts. All in all, we’re looking at a Bears team that ran 41.2 percent of its offensive plays with at least two tight ends on the field. In other words, drafting a third tight end wasn’t something that was done on a whim. Instead, it was done because it will allow Bears Head Coach Ben Johnson to lean even harder into his offensive philosophy.
What is driving the Bears’ bid to go big is the ability to create mismatches with the players in that personnel package. A really good example of this is the two-point conversion play in the team’s win against the Green Bay Packers on Wild Card Saturday.
Let’s take a trip down memory lane:
COLSTON LOVELAND TWO-POINT CONVERSION ?Three-point game!GBvsCHI on Prime VideoAlso streaming on @NFLPlus pic.twitter.com/Hw7Uzerawd
— NFL (@NFL) January 11, 2026After Olamide Zaccheaus scored a touchdown to make it 27-22 with 4:18 left in the fourth quarter, Bears quarterback Caleb Williams hit Colston Loveland for an easy connection on the two-point conversion that made it a three-point game. What tends to get lost in the shuffle is that Chicago is in a heavy personnel package with three tight ends breaking the huddle and a sixth offensive lineman on the line of scrimmage. The Packers defense counters with a heavy package of its own. This is Football 101 with bigs going up against bigs.
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But after starting in a tight formation, Williams drops back into the shotgun, Loveland motions to the bottom of the screen, Kmet goes all the way to the top, and Smythe settles in as the slot. And just like that, what looked like a potential battle in the trenches suddenly looks like the Bears in an 11 personnel package (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) on a key play in the Bears’ comeback attempt.
What makes this whole thing even more glorious is that Johnson outwitted Packers Defensive Coordinator Jeff Hafley, who countered Johnson’s personnel package by including linebacker Nick Niemann, who hadn’t played a defensive coverage snap since the 2024 season. That made identifying the matchup (and taking advantage of it) easy.
What is Sam Roush’s role in the Bears’ philosophy shift?
The Bears aren’t going big just for the sake of going big. This is all part of the team’s greater offensive philosophy moving forward. Take it from new Bears Offensive Coordinator Press Taylor, who lays it out succinctly in this Chicago Tribune piece.
“That (13 personnel) was something we felt like that’s where our game was trending, where our offense was trending as the season went,” Taylor said. “So you see a role in 13 personnel there with the way (now-former Bear) Durham (Smythe) played. Durham was a very experienced player that could do a lot of different things.”
Bears rookie TE Sam Roush at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. © Kirby Lee-Imagn ImagesAs for Sam Roush’s role, I thought these words were telling:
“To be determined. That’s the fun part of it. We don’t have a game for four months. So just seeing where it can go with us. … We’ll figure out what Sam’s strengths are, how he complements those other tight ends and then use as many tight ends or as many personnel groupings as we need to attack whatever defense we’re seeing that week.”
Don’t get me wrong. Trading DJ Moore to the Buffalo Bills stings because he was a joy to watch operate in this offense. So while no more Moore means fewer traditional 11-personnel packages, it also means we figure to see more 12- and 13-personnel looks, with Colston Loveland lining up in the slot. And if Loveland is going to be in the slot or lined up on the boundary, someone needs to be the “Y” tight end. This is where Sam Roush comes into play.
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SAM ROUSH
Because the Bears have Colston Loveland and Cole Kmet atop the depth chart, the Bears are in no rush to push the rookie into a role where he’d have to bite off more than he can chew. Instead, Roush can settle in as a rookie doing stuff he excelled at in college. Roush built a reputation as a strong blocker during his time at Stanford, but running the 40-yard dash in 4.7 seconds, posting a 10-foot-6 broad jump, and 38.5-inch vertical at the Combine suggests he could be more than just a blocker at the next level.
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