Chicago Bears: Keeping Alshon Jeffery is a no-brainer

Last offseason, the Chicago Bears traded disgruntled wide receiver Brandon Marshall to the New York Jets for pennies on the dollar, only to watch him stick the middle finger to the Bears organization by catching 109 passes (sixth in the NFL) for 1,502 yards (fourth in the league) and 14 touchdowns (tied for first). If the Bears know what’s good for them, they’ll avoid the same fate with Alshon Jeffery, who is an even more dynamic player.

In an offseason in which the Bears will move on from Matt Forte and are fully expected to cut ties with standout tight end Martellus Bennett, keeping Alshon Jeffery is the No. 1 priority. Everything else can be put on hold until the Bears find a way to keep Jeffery on the team, because if they don’t retain him, their offense will look like a joke. Want to stunt the progress Jay Cutler made in a big bounce-back season under Adam Gase? Leave him with only Kevin White, Eddie Royal, Zach Miller (assuming they do re-sign him), and Jeremy Langford as his best weapons. None of them are sure things.

You can technically argue that Jeffery isn’t a sure thing because of his nagging injuries and conditioning issues, but if that’s your reason for why the Bears shouldn’t franchise him, then your argument is completely illogical. You see, the franchise tag is a great way to sign a player to a “prove-it” deal who would otherwise make bank and command a long-term deal on the open market.

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If you don’t think Jeffery, who was seventh in the NFL last season with 89.7 yards per game and has one of the most imposing catch radii in the NFL, would command top dollar in free agency, then you, my friend, let the 2015 offseason pass you by. T.Y. Hilton, Demaryius Thomas, and Dez Bryant all signed huge contracts without hitting free agency, and Jeffery is on par with those receivers. Even if you don’t think he is, since he hasn’t been as healthy as those two were (in Bryan’t case, before he signed that deal), that uncertainty factor is negated by the rise in salary cap to $155 million.

The Bears are already playing with fire when it comes to being more cost-effective on the offensive side of the ball, and they will get burned if they let Jeffery escape. White has the ability to be a monster in this league, but how much can they trust a player who didn’t see the field as a rookie due to injury and who was called a raw prospect before the draft? I think he’ll make an immediate impact, but can the Bears be sure?

Jeffery may have appeared in just nine games last season, but he was still clearly the Bears leading receiver. He was first in receptions (54), yards (807, a margin of 343 over the second-placed Marquess Wilson), and second in touchdowns behind Miller with four.

Needless to say, Jeffery paced the team in yards per game, receptions per game, and yards per reception with 14.9. He is their best playmaker by a country mile, and Cutler needs to know that he can have a true No. 1 receiver who can go up and get his trademark “only-where-the-receiver-can-get-them” tosses, as well as his even more well-known “OK-the-big-receiver-saved-that-from-being-a-pick” chucks.

The Boston Globe’s plugged-in Ben Volin wrote that Jeffery could indeed be paid like Dez this offseason, especially since the next-best impending free agent wide receivers are Rishard Matthews and Marvin Jones. And even though the Dolphins have better WRs than the Bears and two much bigger priorities in Olivier Vernon and Lamar Miller, they are already working on re-signing Matthews. Although he is massively underrated and coming off of a huge breakout season, Matthews is three-quarters the player Jeffery is; the Bears need to take note.

Yet, we hear reports from the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport that there’s “a chance” Jeffery could be available. I can see why the Bears would have trepidation when it comes to locking up Jeffery to a long-term deal, but the franchise tag? A chance to put the pressure on Jeffery and get a free year of potentially monstrous play out of a guy who averages 90 yards per game? That shouldn’t just be “an assumption”. The chances of the franchise tag happening should be a guarantee, and there should be no way he hits the free agent market.

Jeffery is one of the ten most talented wide receivers in the NFL, and the Bears don’t have anyone else they can trust at the position just yet. Royal could bounce back, White has as much potential as Jeffery does, and Wilson isn’t bad. But if the Bears keep Jeffery, they can try to build something special on offense.

Oct 18, 2015; Detroit, MI, USA; Chicago Bears wide receiver Alshon Jeffery (17) during the game against the Detroit Lions at Ford Field. Mandatory Credit: Tim Fuller-USA TODAY Sports /

Since breaking out in the 2013 season, Jeffery hadn’t missed a game until last season, so these conditioning issues could be overblown and a crude negotiating tactic on the part of the Bears to leak this concern to reporters. After all, this is the same organization that infamously hunkered down on injury updates this past season, so it’s hard not to rule anything out when it comes to potential propaganda out of Chicago.

Just remember this: when everything was going wrong for the Bears in their nightmare 2014 season, two players did everything they could in Forte and Jeffery. One of them will leave this offseason, and the Bears have to make sure that the other, a 6’3″ receiver with sub-4.5 wheels and mad hops, doesn’t join him. Jeffery caught 85 passes for 1,133 yards and ten touchdowns that season, and he’s been the Bears MVP in each of the past two years. Oh, and he’s 26.

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Please don’t overthink this, Chicago. Just slap the franchise tag on him, and then you can work from there.

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