Injuries and poor depth hurt the Chicago Bears tight ends unit in 2019. Here are five targets in the 2020 NFL Draft who could help in 2020.
In 2019, the Chicago Bears had almost no contribution from the tight ends unit. Trey Burton and Adam Shaheen were supposed to provide a tough one-two combination but injuries and poor play prevented that from happening. The two players combined for only 23 catches, 158 yards, and no touchdowns.
The Bears had Ben Braunecker, J.P. Holtz and Jesper Horsted didn’t provide much more. They combined for just 21 catches, 237 yards and two touchdowns. Five players combining for 395 yards and two touchdowns? For comparison, the Houston Texans’ tight end, Darren Fells (who wasn’t even Deshaun Watson‘s top tight end target), had 341 receiving yards and seven touchdowns.
Tight ends are extremely important for a quarterback. When all else fails, he can look to the big target who can outmuscle the defense and make big catches. With that big target playing well, there are not only more scoring opportunities in the red zone but also more space for the wide receivers to work with. If the defense starts paying attention to the tight end, someone like Allen Robinson, who made big catches without help from the tight ends, can have an easier time to make plays.
I envision the Bears going into 2020 with Burton still being the No. 1 tight end. The team is high on him despite his 2019 season. He didn’t recover as well from his offseason sports hernia surgery and that eventually hurt his other body parts. He had a good 2018 so the team feels if he’s healthy he’ll return to that.
Shaheen is probably gone. He just hasn’t been able to stay on the feel consistently and at the end of his 2019 season head coach Matt Nagy questioned his work ethic. I think the Bears finally admit that the pick was wrong and move on.
With that, the Bears need another tight end to help Burton. After that, they need some depth behind the top two for when injuries rear their ugly heads again. I think the team goes with a veteran to work with Burton and draft someone. Then they’ll pick from one of the other three tight ends from 2019 to battle for the final spot.
That tight end that comes from the draft has to be someone the team feels can step in and eventually become a starter. The Bears could cut Burton after the 2020 season and save themselves $7.1 million in salary cap space. They could easily do that if they have a good, young option on the roster.
Here are five tight end targets for the Chicago Bears in the 2020 NFL Draft.