When the Chicago Bears drafted tight end Sam Roush in the third round of the 2026 NFL Draft, they certainly turned some heads given the already established talent in the tight end room led by Cole Kmet and Colston Loveland.
Coming out of Stanford and praised for his blocking ability, Roush comes to the Bears with plenty of talent on the football field and knowledge in the classroom from his collegiate days, bringing with him a computer science degree.
In today’s era of football, the analytics matter just as much at times as the talent, and for Roush, he plans to bring both to the organization. Roush spoke about how he plans to bring his computer science degree to his football career, and how he feels the analytics side could help improve him at the NFL level.
“It’s a real technical major,” Roush said. “So I think that it helps with general information processing and understanding the situation and making decisions. I really wanted to do that. I felt like I was going to Stanford, which is kind of known for its computer science program so, you know, I figured I might as well do that. Obviously, the main focus was always football, and it will be football for the foreseeable future, as long as I can. But I just wanted to challenge myself and I felt like I might as well take advantage of the ability to do that. I did a couple of class projects. Nothing super useful or insightful, but I think the analytics side of football is really cool and coaches are using it across the league to help make decisions. You know, you want to put your team in the best situation to win and so through analytics, is how a lot of coaches are doing it.”
Chicago clearly brought in not only a talented but an intelligent young tight end with Roush, and how it all falls together is how head coach Ben Johnson can get innovative and creative in putting the rookie into the offense. No matter how it may fall, the Bears have quite the talent on their hands both as an athlete and person in Sam Roush, and he’ll join a stack tight end room that could have them in the discussion for best tight end group in the NFL.
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This article originally appeared on Bears Wire: How rookie Sam Roush plans to bring analytics to Bears
Reporting by Mike Pendleton, Bears Wire / Bears Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
