Snap Judgment: Bears cut back Tarik Cohen’s time, push Mike Davis out

As the Bears try to reconfigure their offense to establish some sort of ground game, it’s clear which player coach Matt Nagy thinks can do the most with those opportunities.

In their 22-14 loss to the Eagles on Sunday, he once again rode rookie David Montgomery. Coming off a landmark game against the Chargers, Montgomery played 73.3 percent of the snaps in Philadelphia and got 14 of the 18 carries. He ran for 40 yards and caught three passes for 36 to lead the team with 76 yards from scrimmage.

With Montgomery in place as the dominant ball carrier, Tarik Cohen’s role has been reduced and Mike Davis’ eliminated.

Cohen played a season-low 20 percent of the snaps against the Chargers and was out there for 35.6 percent of the plays Sunday. He got two carries, one for 7 yards and one for no gain, and Mitch Trubisky targeted him five times (two catches for 9 yards).

His usage has fallen off substantially. Cohen got 11.9 combined rushing attempts and receiving targets per game last season (nearly one fifth of the Bears’ total opportunities offensively) and led them with 1,169 yards from scrimmage. He has gotten 51 targets and 26 rushes this season (9.6 chances per game), accounting for 15.5 of the team’s chances.

Cohen’s production has dropped from an average of 8 yards per target and 4.5 per carry to 3.8 and 2.4, respectively.

Davis, meanwhile, never saw the field Sunday. He has played 15 snaps or fewer every game since the opener and has 11 carries for 25 yards this season. The Bears have him on a two-year, $6 million contract that has an easy out after this season.

It looks best for both sides that they release him now. They could add rookie running back Kerrith Whyte — or any player at another position, really, since there will be little or no snaps left after Montgomery and Cohen — and Davis might find a better opportunity elsewhere.

Overworked defenders

With the Bears possessing the ball just 19:42, they logged a season-high 89 defensive snaps.

As usual, cornerbacks Kyle Fuller and Prince Amukamara, linebacker Danny Trevathan and safety Eddie Jackson played every one of them. Safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix played 88, and Khalil Mack played 80 — by far his season high.

Mack is at 482 snaps this season, putting him on pace for 964. Fuller, Amukamara, Clinton-Dix, Travathan, Jackson are on track to top 1,000.

The Bears are 25th in the NFL at 28:34 time of possession per game. They’ve gone 561 snaps on defense, compared to 509 for the offense. That’s close to an extra game worth of work defensively.

Defensive line rotation

With nose tackle Eddie Goldman leaving because of a thigh injury after 11 plays, the Bears played Bilal Nichols 76 percent of the snaps, Roy Robertson-Harris 54 percent and Nick Williams 53 percent.

Nichols is a tough guy — he’s been playing through a broken hand — but 68 snaps is a brutal workload at that position.

Receiver roundup

There weren’t many targets to go around with Mitch Trubisky completing just 10 of 21 passes for 125 yards, but here’s how they broke down:

Allen Robinson, 5 (one catch, 6 yards)

Cohen, 5 (two catches, 9 yards)

Montgomery, 4 (three catches, 36 yards)

Taylor Gabriel, 3 (three catches, 69 yards)

Cordarrelle Patterson, 1 (one catch, 5 yards)

Trey Burton, Anthony Miller and Adam Shaheen, 1 each (no catches)

As far as the playing-time allotment at receiver and tight end, the most notable decision was playing Miller 18 snaps (40 percent). It was his lowest since the opener.

Patterson is a high-potential playmaker, but it’s hard to pin down what Nagy wants to do with him. Over Weeks 3-5, he played a total of 18 snaps. Then he played 15 in each of the next two games, but just eight Sunday.

Burton played 60 percent of the snaps at tight end, Shaheen played 42 percent and Ben Braunecker got in for a snap. J.P. Holtz, who plays tight end and fullback, was in for 40 snaps.