Chicago Bears: Jarvis Landry needs to be in the Windy City

We all know the Chicago Bears need a revamped wide receiver corps. While some feel he’s too expensive, Jarvis Landry needs to land in the Windy City.

One of the biggest priorities for Chicago Bears general manager Ryan Pace this offseason is giving Mitch Trubisky weapons to throw to. In 2017, the Bears ranked dead last in passing. Yes, part of the reason for that was John Fox’s refusal to pass more, but everyone agrees that the wide receivers corps just wasn’t good enough.

The Bears look to free agency to improve that unit. I expect they pick up two receivers. They’ll also pick someone up through the draft as well.

Chicago hits free agency with big pockets. They currently have over $41 million in cap space, but some expect the salary cap to increase up to $8 million. In addition, there are some cuts they can make that increase the cap and not cost much in dead money. In fact, they could have close to $100 million available.

One receiver the Bears must have is Jarvis Landry. Landry is the most controversial of the receivers set to hit the open market. He is more of a slot receiver, and those players usually don’t make top money. However, he is the most dependable receiver available.

Landry has 400 receptions in his four seasons, the most of any receiver in his first four seasons in the history of the NFL. Also, with 26 catches in 2018, he’ll have the most catches of anyone in his first five seasons. This is something the Bears sorely need.

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One of the biggest troubles the Bears had this season was third down conversions. They converted 34.6 percent of their third-down conversions. That ranked 26th in the league. Conversely, Landry has 97 career receptions on third down. Of those catches, 54 of them converted to first downs (55.6 percent).

When the ball is thrown Landry’s way, it’s almost a given that he makes the catch. For his career, he has a 70.2 percent catching percentage (400 catches on 570 targets). This is another area the Bears receivers struggled with over the past several seasons. Furthermore, he is a tough receiver who outmuscles defenders for the ball.

The one knock on Landry is his lack of touchdowns. He has 22 touchdowns in his career, and nine of them came this season. Part of the reason for that though is the lack of passing game overall for the Miami Dolphins.

The Fins struggled coming out of the gate in 2017, scoring just 41 points in their first four games (35 of them in two games). Miami had 24 total touchdown passes, and Landry recorded 37.5 percent of them.

Having Landry play in an up-tempo offense with an accurate quarterback will help Landry’s numbers even more. He’ll make the catches to continue drives. Also, with better passing, he’ll be able to make more catches in space and his touchdown numbers should rise.

Packers break the market

The Green Bay Packers turned the market on its head with the signing of Davante Adams. He received a four-year, $58 million contract ($18 million guaranteed). That changed everything. People felt queasy about giving Landry $14 million + seeing he is a slot receiver. Why pay him as much as players like A.J. Green, Julio Jones or Dez Bryant?

Well, looking at the chart below, Landry compares pretty well with some of the “bigger” named receivers. I also included Adams, and you see he blows him away.

As you see above, Landry compares well with these other receivers. These are stats from each player’s first four seasons. Each of the other receivers ended up with a big contract for their efforts. Again, I need to point out that some of these players had some very good quarterbacks throwing to them. Adams had Aaron Rodgers, Bryant had Tony Romo, and Jones had Matt Ryan.

Going back to Adams, you see how much better Landry is. He has more catches and yards. Even when you talk about touchdowns, Adams, with Rodgers throwing to him, only has 4 more touchdowns than Landry. Adams’ contract upset everything. There’s a new era in how receivers get paid. Landry is asking for at least what Adams received. As a result, Landry deserves at least that much.

Dolphins go on the attack

The Dolphins could put the franchise tag on Landry. That doesn’t seem likely, given how bad relations between the two parties have gotten. For example, the Miami Herald‘s Armando Salguero wrote an article about the “bad” Landry. Keep in mind, however, it’s coming from the Miami Dolphins’ point of view and seems similar to the Philadelphia Eagles’ situation with DeSean Jackson.

Somehow, a story leaked that claimed DeSean Jackson was a gang member. The Eagles used that story to justify cutting an effective player. Jackson needed to issue a statement denying that report. This is what the Dolphins are doing now. The Salguero article talked about Landry, who sometimes doesn’t run the right routes. Salguero goes on to talk about how much of a pain Landry was.

A pain? Perhaps he was, but the Dolphins are to blame as well. They threw money around last offseason. Landry expected to see some of this money, yet the Dolphins told him to wait and they’d reward him. He could have held out of camp in order to get a new contract, but he was a team player. He did everything the organization asked for the good of the team.

Next: Top free agent wide receivers Bears should go after

Now, the team bashes him so they can justify letting him go. They bash him for averaging just 8.8 yards per catch in 2017. On the other hand, they don’t mention that he raised his yards per catch average every season from 9.0 to 10.5 to 12.1 until Jay Cutler came to town and dropped his average.

Landry is entering the prime of his career and will put up big numbers. It’s imperative the Chicago Bears work something out and sign him.