The Chicago Bears Need for a Top WR- The Biggest Fallacy in Free Agency?
Entering the 2017-18 season, the Chicago Bears were a team in flux with a new QB in free agent Mike Glennon as well as first round pick Mitchell Trubisky and there was certainly hope for the young offense due to the excitement for a duo at WR in Cameron Meredith and Kevin White. That exciting sensation fell out very quick after Meredith suffered a season ending leg injury in preseason followed by a season ending injury to White, essentially wiping out the Bears’ best playmakers at WR.
When the season began it became very apparent that the Bears were missing the services of Meredith and White and in the end the team finished in the bottom five in the league in both passing yards and points scored per game and the leading WR on the team was Kendall Wright with 614 yards. Now as off-season period begins and the free agency hype train starts, one of the main free agency storylines that has been discussed so far is the Bears and the possibility of them signing a big name WR. Some names that have come to mind include Jarvis Landry, Allen Robinson and quite frankly any WR on the open market, but what I told you the Bears didn’t need any of these WRs? What if I told you it would be a mistake for the Bears to spend big money on a WR? Well, if the title of this article didn’t give it away already, here it is- the Chicago Bears pursuit of a big name WR may be one of the biggest fallacies in free agency.
Now before I go any further let me state that I believe the Bears offense would improve with a big name WR like Landry or Robinson and yes they might go that route, but the point of this article is point out why it is not be as big of an issue for the team then initially expected.
There are three main reasons why the Bears need for a big name WR could be a free agency fallacy:
A. Prior success of free agent WRs and their direct impact on team success
B. The Bears current state in the league
C. The Bears #1 issue may not be a need for WR help
Let’s start with A. Since 2000, there have been a large number of signings year by year, including WRs, and since then I can only count a select few who were worth their free agent contracts but there has been only two who were on Superbowl winning teams: Alshon Jeffery when he signed last year with Philadelphia and Sidney Rice when he signed with Seattle (even though he really never made an impact with the team).Other than Jeffery and Rice, no team since 2000 has won a Superbowl with a big name free agent WR on their team; these Superbowl winning teams either had WRs they drafted or traded for before or during the season. Sure, teams may get good production from their free agent WRs but none really helped their franchises win anything including some top WRs from the past that signed big deals who never won a Superbowl with their new teams including Vincent Jackson, Mike Wallce, Santonio Holmes, Terrell Owens and others.
Now onto B. The Chicago Bears enter the NFL off-season with the 8th pick in the NFL Draft and over $50 million in cap space. The team finished the season with a 5-11 record and last in the division for the third straight year. The reason I bring this up is because if the Bears were a legit Superbowl threat and only needed a big play WR to get them to the big game, then by all means go all in on Jarvis Landry or Allen Robinson. But this is not the case for the Chicago Bears. Are the Bears a young team on the rise? Yes. Could they be a wildcard team next year and compete like the Rams did? Sure. But is Landry or Robinson alone going to turn the Bears into a legit threat in the NFC? No.
Finally let’s wrap this up with C. Even though the Bears have needs all over the field, I am here to say that their biggest need is not a position at all nor is it a scheme issue or coaching issue; the Bears biggest need is for their team to remain healthy. By the end of the 2017 season, the Bears lost the following players to either season ending injuries or injuries that kept certain players out for portions of the season:
· Cameron Meredith WR
· Kevin White WR
· Zach Miller TE
· Kyle Long OL
· Willie Young DE
· Leonard Floyd OLB
· Jerrell Freeman ILB
· Quintin Demps S
By my count that’s eight starters lost to injury. So let’s think about this for a second; what would the 2017 Chicago Bear have looked like if they had all of their starters for all 16 games? My guess would be that they would have probably have won at least one or two more games. Now some will argue that every team fights through injuries, but it’s rare to see a team lose this many starters in the same season. Some may say that the Eagles lost key players, including their star QB Carson Wentz, and those folks would be right but let’s look at their injuries:
· Carson Wentz QB
· Darren Sproles RB
· Jason Peters OL
· Jordan Hicks LB
So the Eagles lost four key contributors and yes they are big names for the team, but to match what a team like the Bears lost, imagine if we add Alshon Jeffery, Torrey Smith, Brandon Graham and Rodney McLeod to that injury list? Would the Eagles have still been able to beat the Falcons in the divisional round without these eight starters? My gut tells me no. This is just to shed some light on how impactful the Bears injuries were this season.
To wrap this discussion up I just want to quickly recap the point of this piece; the storyline of the Chicago Bears need for a top notch WR in free agency could be one of the biggest fallacies in free agency this year. Sure an addition like Jarvis Landry would certainly help the team and their young QB but my belief is that a WR like Landry is not necessary for the team to be successful. If the Bears do decide to go all in on a top WR on the market it will certainly be exciting for the offense under new head coach Matt Nagy but if they decide to spread out their money and sign a couple tier-2 WRs instead, fans shouldn’t be worried. What the top priority for the Bears should be is focusing on the long term health of their roster because as I said earlier in this article, if Cameron Meredith and Kevin White never got hurt, this whole topic might simply be a conversation piece and not a real concern for the future of the Chicago Bears.