Luther Burden — Week 3: Eleven Targets, an Early Score
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Wednesday, Sep 30
Burden caught 7 of 11 targets for 61 yards, three first downs and the game's first touchdown, 8 yards on third and 2 from the Philadelphia 8 with 8:56 left in the first quarter, and ran once for 7. His 11 targets led both teams and are the most by a Bear in a game this season; the fourth-and-3 throw to him from the Philadelphia 3 fell incomplete, in a 27–7 win over the Eagles.
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Nothing to nothing, eight 56 left in the first quarter, third and two at the Philadelphia eight, the eleventh play of Chicago's first drive. Case Keenum threw short middle to Luther Burden, three yards behind the line, and Burden ran it in for the touchdown. +2.0 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and 2.8 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. Two snaps earlier he had carried around left end from the 16 to the nine, seven yards. Chicago never trailed.
The line: 11 targets, seven catches, 61 yards, one touchdown, three first downs, 56 air yards, 29 after the catch, −1.1 expected points on the targets; one carry, seven yards. The catches went seven, eight for the score, 13, six, 25, four and −2. The 25 was first and 10 at the Chicago 20 with six 14 left in the half, short left, pushed out at the 45, +1.5, the first play of the drive that ended in a 29-yard field goal and a 10 to nothing lead. The −2, in the third quarter, came with an offensive pass interference call on Rome Odunze that Philadelphia declined. Four incompletions: fourth and three at the Philadelphia three with 14 oh two left in the half, short left, −2.6 expected points and −7.6 points of win probability, the largest loss on any Bears pass or run all night, one snap after Odunze's third-down incompletion from the same spot; third and 11 at the 11 with two minutes left in the half, which brought on the field goal; second and 12 at the Chicago 13 in the third; and first and 10 at the Philadelphia 47 early in the fourth. Seven targets before halftime, four after. Two third-down targets, the touchdown and the third and 11.
11 targets led both teams — DeVonta Smith had eight for the Eagles — and were 11 of Keenum's 34 throws, ahead of Kalif Raymond's seven, Odunze's six and Colston Loveland's four. Nobody on the Bears had been thrown to more than nine times in a game this season before Monday. Raymond had the yards, 90 on six catches and the 41-yard touchdown. Keenum started with Caleb Williams out with a hamstring strain suffered in the Week Two loss to the Vikings, per the Bears' team site.
Back in June the preview's read on Burden was four targets a game as a rookie, no sticky volume to build on, and a second-year role that would need to nearly double that to matter, with the target share as the September watch. Week One was five targets. Week Two was seven, four of them from the backup. Monday was 11, from a different backup. Three games: 23 targets, 15 catches, a hundred 56 yards, one touchdown, and seven and two-thirds targets a game, close to double the rookie rate. The volume the preview said was missing has arrived, with a backup throwing some or all of it in two of the three games; what has not come with it is the efficiency, seven of 11 and negative expected points on Monday. Chicago hosts the Jets on Sunday the fourth.
_Data via nflverse._
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