The Bears only needed to see Anthony Miller play 47 preseason snaps — about 13 percent of their total — to know what they’ll have in the second-round pick when the games begin to count on Sunday night.

What Miller did on the practice fields of Olivet Nazarene University and Halas Hall stood out to the point where coach Matt Nagy didn’t feel the need to get a rookie wide receiver as many reps as possible.

“We understood how he was going to start fitting into this offense, to what role, and what we did was kind of pull back and say, ‘He fits physically, but where does he fit mentally,’” Nagy said. “So over the past few weeks we’ve been trying to test that out and he fell into that range for us, where in the preseason games we felt he was ok with where he’s at, and now we’ll just figure out where’s the best spot for him in this upcoming game.”

That’s quite a compliment for a player with no prior NFL experience. Part of it, too, could be the Bears wanting to “hide” Miller from the Packers’ film study, something the previous coaching staff did well with Tarik Cohen last year before unleashing him on the Atlanta Falcons in Week 1.

A good chunk of what the Bears’ offense does on Sunday will be those “unscouted looks.” Packers coach Mike McCarthy estimated about 30-35 percent of a team’s Week 1 plays are not on film; that percentage may be higher with a first-year head coach who didn’t even play his starters in the traditional dress rehearsal third preseason game.

So take it from a guy who had some battles with Miller during training camp: This guy is the real deal, and is ready to be let loose on the NFL starting Sunday.

“He has that ‘dog’ mentality,” safety Eddie Jackson said. “He’s going to go out there and his competition level is very high. He runs good routes and he wants it. He wants to win and he wants to go out there and compete, and that’s one of the best things you can have in a young guy like that.

“… You can see he knows what he’s doing. He’s still got a lot of work to do, being a young guy and learning different things. (But) for him to come in, I feel like he’s a little ahead.”

Offensive coordinator Mark Helfrich pointed to Miller making a “ton of wow plays” but cautioned that he won’t immediately be thrown into a prime-time role in this offense just yet. Part of that is because the Bears want to give him as controlled an introduction as possible in his first NFL game; the other part is this offense has enough talent around Miller, be it Allen Robinson or Trey Burton or Jordan Howard or Cohen, to not have to thrust him into the spotlight from the first snap of the season.

“You want to kind of try to set things up to be as successful as a debut as possible for him,” Helfrich said. “But I’m very, very excited about his future. He’s a great competitor, a guy that loves to play football and not just with the ball in his hands, whether it’s on special teams or doing some of the dirty work, he’s shown he’s completely capable of that.”



Miller exudes confidence, but isn’t getting ahead of himself before his first NFL game. Still, he’s dreamed of making big plays on Sunday, and his entire football career — which includes having to walk on at Memphis just to get his foot in the college football door — has been building to this point.

“I’m gonna dive right in,” Miller said. “As soon as I get out there I’m gonna give it everything I got. I don’t care who’s across from me, I’m going to give it 100 percent every play.”

Just how big a role Miller has on Sunday night will be a fascinating storyline to follow. Everything he’s done up to this point suggests he’s capable of playing a significant part in the success of the Bears’ offense. Now, it’s time for him to show it — and help do what he and his teammates are setting out to accomplish in 2018.

“I think there’s a lot of people sleeping on us right now,” Miller said. “We’re that new team, we got a couple new guys. But the history of this team hasn’t been what we’ve wanted it to be, so we’re about to re-write it.

“This is the beginning of something new, a new era in Chicago.”