CHICAGO — The transformation of Rome Odunze into joyful painter Bob Ross for the Chicago Bears schedule release video was a clever production, sharp in details.

Odunze, with his hair all the way out in an afro and a blue button-down shirt tucked into blue jeans, didn’t just look the part. He provided a spot-on re-creation of the late PBS star from “The Joy of Painting.”

Now if the wide receiver can cast himself as the big-time playmaker he was through the first four games of last season, the Bears will have the kind of productive player they believed they were selecting with the ninth pick of the 2024 draft.

Coach Ben Johnson said last week he’s “buying stock” in second-year wideout Luther Burden III, and it’s a talented room with veteran Kalif Raymond, rookie Zavion Thomas and Jahdae Walker also in the mix.

The healthy public debate over which receiver should be anointed Caleb Williams’ No. 1 target — and tight end Colston Loveland is in the conversation too — doesn’t resonate inside Halas Hall as it does elsewhere. Internally, from Johnson on down to the last player, they’re talking about getting wins, not assigning titles.

But it’s an interesting discussion and it’s notable that Odunze, despite missing the final five regular-season games with a foot injury, led the team with 90 targets in 2025. His 661 yards were 21 fewer than DJ Moore and 52 behind Loveland. All three players had six touchdown receptions. Without the injury, it’s easy to imagine Odunze would have led the team in all major receiving categories.

How the target share will work out with Moore now in Buffalo remains to be seen. Moore was second on the team with 85 targets, including a team-high 35 on first-and-10 plays. Also gone are his 11 red-zone targets, third behind Loveland (14) and Odunze (12). So there will be a lot more opportunities to go around.

Odunze had 20 receptions for 296 yards and five touchdowns through the first four games last season. He initially popped up on the injury report for the Week 9 game in Cincinnati, listed with a heel issue. That came after he had seven catches for 114 yards in a loss in Baltimore.

He struggled against the Bengals, had six catches for 86 yards and a touchdown the next week in a win over the New York Giants, then totaled only seven receptions for 102 yards over the next three games before being shut down with a stress fracture in his left foot.

After the injury, Odunze dropped catchable passes and struggled to show the dynamic — the ability to make frequent contested catches with a powerful and long 6-foot-3, 215-pound frame — that made him an appealing pairing with Williams in the 2024 draft.

“I was gearing up for a great season,” Odunze said Wednesday after an organized team activity practice at Halas Hall. “I felt like I was on track to have that. And injuries are part of the game. Unfortunately, I feel like it affected me more than injuries have in the past.

“I was rehabbing the foot. I’ve never really had an injury like that. That was kind of prohibiting me in that way. But I’m the type of person that doesn’t want to provide those excuses for myself. So if the ball’s not caught, the ball’s not caught, regardless of if I’m running on one foot or whatever it is. That’s my standard and that’s my expectation, and I didn’t do it well enough.”

The spring has been valuable for Odunze as he works to rebuild the natural confidence — even overconfidence — needed to play the position. Training camp will be another important step.

“This is my new normal,” he said. “And it’s not from a standpoint that I’m always in pain, but the way my foot broke, there’s calluses in there that creates a different type of foot structure with those bones — different types of things that kind of shift things around. So my new normal was kind of what I am going into.

“I don’t think that’s anything that’s going to prohibit me from making plays, but I feel like with the break — it’s just like when you tear your ACL — it’s never really back to normal.”

That’s natural for any player returning from a lower-body injury. Odunze’s gait changed when he was playing through the injury, both before he was shut down and again in the playoffs. He has to get comfortable in his movement again, and that’s what he’s working to regain.

With that should come the kind of confidence — I can make a play in any situation — that’s required to be a primary target for Williams and to put up big numbers.

“He’s tough, and that’s what we all knew when he was coming out of college,” Johnson said. “He’s a team player. He’s going to lay it out on the line every time he gets on the grass. I think his teammates appreciate that. His coaching staff certainly appreciates that. Hopefully we can get him for 17-plus games this year and his career will really take off from that.”

Wide receivers coach Antwaan Randle El expressed optimism that Odunze will resume his role in the offense as a big-bodied X receiver with enough explosive and downfield ability to make him much more than a possession receiver.

“You go back and you pull that film (from college) and match it up with the plays that he has made in the NFL as it relates to those 50-50 balls,” Randle El said. “The one thing you get is that the confidence is restored: Let’s go do it from that standpoint. It’s just about showing him, and that’s what we’ve done and we fully expect him to go out and make those plays. And he does for himself too.

“He’s been critical of those plays that he didn’t make. I go back to the idea of seeing it, realizing it and now let’s go out and attack it and be better in that area.”

Asked what a breakout season would look like for him, the first thing Odunze said was “wins.” When questioned if he’s the No. 1 receiver with Moore out of the picture, he sidestepped the public debate.

“I just want to be the best receiver possible for this team,” Odunze said. “I feel like I provide many assets to do that. And I’m comfortable with a lot of the target share, as well as the other guys getting involved so we can be the best offense possible.”

That’s the kind of warm landscape — one that doesn’t require an easel and brushes to create — that would appeal to the Bears.

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