Bears' Forte, Knox cast distractions aside
BOURBONNAIS — Between them, running back Matt Forte and wide receiver Johnny Knox accounted for 55.7 percent of the Bears' offense last season, but both find themselves dealing with distractions in training camp.
For Knox, who led the team with 960 receiving yards in 2010 and tied Forte for the team lead with 51 catches, it's his demotion to the second team behind free-agent acquisition Roy Williams.
For Forte, it's the frustration of waiting for a contract extension that he believes he deserves but which, as of yet, hasn't happened.
Forte believes it will.
“It's going to play out for the best, I think,” he said. “It's not really my decision to say what's going to happen, but things are going well right now. They've been negotiating since the first time we talked about that. They're still negotiating.”
Forte's 1,616 yards from scrimmage (1,069 rushing, 547 receiving) ranked 10th in the NFL in 2010, and 12th in franchise history. He is in the final year of his rookie contract, a four-year deal worth $3.78 million. His base salary for this season is $550,000. The average salary of the top five running backs in the NFL last season was $8.15 million.
Until a deal is done, Forte says he will not have a problem focusing on his performance on the field.
“It's not really difficult for me,” he said. “Maybe it's different for other people. But I can go out there and focus on football. If you're not focused, you're going to mess up. You've got to be mentally strong to play this game and to deal with some of the other stuff, so I just block out everything when I'm on the field. I don't think about anything but making a big play that's coming up.”
Knox, who was tied for 10th in the NFL last season with 17 receptions of 20 yards or longer, says he will do the same as he battles for playing time and catches with Williams, Earl Bennett and Devin Hester.
Knox was somewhat surprised by his demotion, and rightfully so, considering he had 399 more receiving yards last season than Bennett, who was second on the Bears with 561 yards on 46 catches. Hester, who is in the starting lineup with Williams and has been the most impressive receiver in camp, had 40 catches last year for 475 yards. Williams caught 37 passes for 530 yards last season with the Dallas Cowboys.
“It's all competition,” Knox said. “It's the NFL. It's going to happen every day. You've got to be able to just accept that and keep fighting.”
Fighting an uphill battle isn't foreign to Knox, who came into the league in 2009 with little fanfare as a fifth-round pick from Division-II Abilene Christian but caught 45 passes for 527 yards and led the NFL with a 29.0-yard kickoff-return average.
“A lot of people didn't expect me to do what I'm doing now,” he said. “My whole life I've been turning doubters into believers. So I've just got to keep making them believe.”
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