Bear Digest

Another place Keenan Allen won't be going besides Chicago

Keenan Allen made a lot of catches but couldn't make a $23 million impact with the Bears, and as he looks for a new team it's obvious there's another place he won't be going.
Gene Chamberlain|
Bears fans at Halas Hall for training camp flock around wide receiver Keenan Allen for autographs.
Bears fans at Halas Hall for training camp flock around wide receiver Keenan Allen for autographs. | David Banks-Imagn Images

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Chicago Bears

Before Chicago was labeled where quarterbacks go to die, it was the place where wide receivers go to die.

Keenan Allen played for a season in Chicago and is still alive, though. He doesn't have a team yet and apparently wants to sign with one.

For some reason there is a strong group of Bears fans who think the team still should bring Allen back even though he took $23 million of cap space up last year and gobbled up a lot of targets that could have easily been going to developing Rome Odunze during a wasted season of losses.

Hel-lo...they drated Luther Burden III and Colston Loveland as cheaper targets.

Allen probably can still play at age 33 even though he has missed 13 games in the past three seasons. It's just not going to be in Chicago, although he had said he'd be willing to return here.

Apparently, it's not going to be somewhere else, either.

Allen appeared on a stream with Jgoofylive and despite speculation he'd fit in well with Aaron Rodgers in Pittsburgh, it's not happening.

Allen said he hadn't even been following the Aaron Rodgers-Steelers drama closely and wasn't even aware of the signing until well after it occurred.

"There's two sides to the story," Allen said. "A-Rod being the quarterback, of course that interests you. But Pittsburgh? No."

Allen had already revealed where he wants to go if he could't come back to Chicago.

"It's Chicago or I'm back to L.A.," Allen said.

There has never been interest shown by the Bears for his return, so he's either focused on getting one of the Los Angeles teams interested or apparently won't be playing.

Allen did bring good route running and a target in the middle of the field to help keep Caleb Williams from being sacked even more than 68 times, but the Bears basically wasted $23 million in cap space with his signing and gave up a fourth-round pick in doing it.



He had a good, team attitude and was a friend to Williams, but so was Odunze and the Bears would have been better served by just getting Odunze or DJ Moore even more targets, or, better yet, Cole Kmet more.

After all, Kmet had just 55 targets, his second fewest, in a year when he caught an NFL tight end high of 85% of his targets.

The Allen signing was another in a series of Poles mistakes with trades or signings of receivers, although not quite as large of a disaster as trades for Chase Claypool and N'Keal Harry.

Not all of Poles' trades with receivers involved failed. He did acquire Moore that way.

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.