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Ryan Pace took a risky bet when he guaranteed $ 14 million to Taylor Gabriel, a guy who has never had more than 36 receptions or 625 yards in a season, last March. It was a bet on the 27-year-old who was not only an ideal choice for Matt Nagy's offense, but also a much larger workload than either the Cleveland Browns or the Atlanta Falcons.
Four games do not mean that Pace's bet has paid off, but what Gabriel did to start his career at Bears has only been promising.
Gabriel quickly proved to be one of Mitch Trubisky's favorite targets, if not the quarterback's favorite, with 22 receptions on 29 targets. If a quarter of the season is not enough to predict Gabriel's production at the end of the year, it should be noted that he is about to quickly eclipse the peaks of his career in targets, receptions and sites.
"He's a fast receiver and I think the interesting thing about Taylor is that he wants to get away from this whole gadget thing or label that's been," Nagy said. "He did an excellent job by adopting an offensive attitude and then fulfilling his role as receiver."
As he was with the Falcons, Gabriel was solidly a third catcher and a "gadget", as Nagy said. He participated in 53% of offensive shots in Atlanta in 2017 and 41% in 2016. Previously, he had played 45 and 58% of the shots Browns in 2015 and 2014, respectively.
The most impressive part of Gabriel's strong start in 2018 is therefore the ability of the Bears to use it. Gabriel played 83% of the Bears offensives, the same percentage as Trey Burton and Allen Robinson (93%) among the talented players.
Its use is also impressive, as Gabriel missed a good part of training camp due to a foot injury. But even then, Gabriel's work in July and August was enough to convince his coaches that he was ready for a bigger role than ever before.
"You plan it by ensuring that it gets these reps in practice because I think the most important thing is that your legs get used to it," Nagy said. "If you're not in the field as much, your production may go down because you're not strong, your legs are tired and all that, it's conditioned and it did a good job.
"So, mentally, can he handle everything we ask him to do? He did that too. So it's great, it's a benefit to us and I think that, thanks to the depth we have at the wide receiver, it just allows guys like Taylor and those other guys who are behind Allen Robinson to have a chance to really leave. there and do their thing. "
The fact that Gabriel can be on the ground allows the Bears to use it in different ways. He may be thrown on the line of scrimmage to create confusion or imbalance (and when making a transfer, he is carried four times for 27 yards). Trubisky can choose it for fast screen projections on the perimeter. He can stretch a defensive field with his speed. And he's still effective on these gadget games – he's the one who scored a touchdown on "Willy Wonka," after all.
"No. 1, he can go for it," said offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich. "Everyone in this league knows that it can really run – it counts – wherever it is in the field, Maybe they have to open their hips a bit earlier or line up a bit differently, and you can do a lot of that with him and the other guys down there, but he's a guy who's passionate about us. guy who has never been "the guy" of his team, but we just have to keep building his packages. "
Receiving coach Mike Furrey said earlier this month that Gabriel's decisive encounter with Tampa Bay – he had captured the seven targets for 104 yards with 104 touchdowns – was the culmination of his growing awareness of the team.
"He's been trying to figure out how to do it the right way, by getting into a system where you're supposed to train, do good things, and try to improve every day," Furrey said. "It's been two weeks since he's been doing it and he's starting to accept what we're trying to do. He was rewarded for that yesterday, so it was good to see that because he was working on it, he wanted to improve, he wanted to be a reliable target for Mitch and he wanted him to trust him and he was working on what the last two weeks so it's good to see this happen. "
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