Andrew Erickson

Ben Johnson has been very vocal about we got to find ways to get the ball into Luther Burns' hands because last year, every time they did, good things happened.

And that should continue to happen with now a big opportunity opening up in this offense with DJ Moore no longer on the team.

This team is second in vacated wide receiver targets.

fifth in targets inside the 10 heading into the 2026 season.

So when we're talking about who could potentially step up, take on a bigger share of the targets in an offense that, look, maybe Caleb Williams is just the answer, right?

You just draft him and you don't have to guess where the targets are going to go because he's going to melt faces in his second year with Ben Johnson.

That's kind of how I like playing it.

But with Luther Burden, if he ends up being that Amon Ross St.

Brown in Ben Johnson's offense where he's getting a lot of the layup targets out of the slot, he had the highest...

target rate or catchable target rate per fantasy points data last year at 90%.

So while Roma Dunze, also a player that should be able to capitalize on some of these vacated targets, he's seeing more of the tougher targets.

There's a reason why him and Caleb Williams haven't been able to connect the last two seasons because he's running the harder routes where it's not as easy.

But Luther Burden, he's getting the layups.

underneath targets where he can just create yards after the catch, which is what he is best at.

And coming out of college, I always felt that he was very dependent on his landing spot and where he is in Ben Johnson's offense, where he can be that underneath eater, rack up PPR points.

Yeah, this is the bull case for Luther Bird as a breakout candidate.

The bearish case is, well, what if he doesn't play more snaps?

He only played 60% of the snaps three times last year.

And when the Bears go heavy tight ends, is Luther Burden even on the field?

Like, who's the number one wide receiver on the offense?