Draft a Better Bears Tight End Fix Than Free Agency
Tom Hanks and Shelley Long made a comedy in 1986 about a house that kept gobbling up a couple's money in repairs entitled "The Money Pit."
The sequel is at Halas Hall. It's called the Chicago Bears tight end position.
Something has to be done by general manager Ryan Pace to stop the flow of money into a bottomless pit at tight end. The only real solution is coming up with a young tight end still on a rookie contract, who can make significant contributions as a receiver and blocker.
They had only 46 receptions from all their tight ends last year, 23 from the top two, and used seven players due to injuries.
Next season they've already committed $13.4 million of their salary cap to tight ends, according to Spotrac.com. It's the third most in the league to be spent on tight ends. Fortunately, only about $8.5 million is in guaranteed cash so there is a very small amount of maneuvering available for free agency.
The free agent market could include Hunter Henry, Eric Ebron, Austin Hooper and Tyler Eifert if they want to keep throwing cash down into the free agent pit. For the money, it would be difficult to beat Henry if the Chargers were silly enough to let him leave, because he does so much both blocking and receiving.
If the Bears head down the free agent route, they'll easily be spending more of their cap on this one position than anyone in the league.
Eifert and Henry have had injury problems in the past, and another injured tight end for the Bears truly would make it like throwing money into a pit.
Burton Is Key
What the Bears need above all else is for Trey Burton to suddenly recover from a strange series of injuries and surgeries, and simply play at the level he did in 2018.
There's no guarantee he'll even reach that level again, and they won't know until training camp because he's already had another surgery on his hip.
If Burton does recover, it solves more than their lack of receptions at tight end. He was graded the best run-blocking tight end in the league by Pro Football Focus in 2018, and tight end blocking on runs, screens and downfield receptions by wide receivers is essential in coach Matt Nagy's offense.
Then there's Adam Shaheen, who has accomplished nothing in three years and is costing $1.88 million in the final year of his contract. Cutting him would cost only a nominal amount against the cap.
"Matt talks all the time about the importance of the tight end position to our offense," Pace said. "We lost two tight ends this year. We have to be honest with ourselves. Availability is critical in our league. We have to protect ourselves as a franchise, too. That's something we'll look at."
Recycling
Another possible solution would not be to delve into free agency per se, but find a cheaper player with a productive past who has been discarded, much as they did with Zach Miller.
One example could be the Buccaneers' Cameron Brate.
The Naperville native has only non-guaranteed salary figures left on his contract against Tampa Bay's cap, so he can be traded or cut him without a cap hit. They got little from him for his $7 million last year, just 30 catches. But he's been productive in the past.
Teams wouldn't want to absorb $6 million salary on his contract by trading for him, so it could be a matter of waiting for him to be cut.
Drafting
The real way to fight the problem, though, is by drafting a tight end.
The Bears need a tight end fast and can't afford to wait for development.
For the better part of two decades, it was thought a drafted tight end needed at least a year or more of seasoning. There were only seven rookie tight ends in the NFL between 2000-2016 who gained 500 receiving yards.
Either colleges are making better use of tight ends or the game has changed enough to better prepare them for the NFL, but in the last three seasons alone there have been five more rookies who went over 500 receiving yards: Baltimore's Mark Andrews, the Jets' Chris Herndon, the Giants' Evan Engram, the San Francisco's George Kittle and this season Denver's Noah Fant.
So the idea of actually finding one with one of their seven draft picks to contribute immediately no longer sounds absurd. It's just picking the right one that's tricky, but at least they have seven draft picks this year to try.
"Just the quantity of draft picks we have in this draft is much better for us," Pace said.
Draftables
Notre Dame's Cole Kmet seems out of the Bears' reach as a late to mid-late first-rounder. He's an all-around tight end from Barrington, Ill. and the son of former Purdue player Frank Kmet.
According to Drafttek.com, Jared Pinkney of Vanderbilt seems the next-best tight end option based on high 2018 production, decent size (6-4, 260) and blocking ability. Missouri's Albert Okwuegbunam is another highly thought-of tight end at 6-5, 260 and with a freakish 80.75-inch wingspan, according to Walterfootball.com's scouting report.
Both Okwuegbunam and Pinkney had reduced receiving numbers in 2019, largely due to problems with their teams' offenses and quarterbacks.
Stanford has a reputation like Iowa, for producing tight ends, and Stanford's Colby Parkinson is a good red-zone target at 6-7, 240, who needs to fill out to be an effective blocker. Washington's Hunter Bryant is said by scouts to be an effective receiver, but at 6-2, 239, he'll be on the field mainly in passing situations.
Two other schools with records of producing pro tight ends have potential draft Day 2 picks. Purdue's Brycen Hopkins had 120 receptions in three years. BYU's Matt Bushman is the same size as Hopkins at 6-5, 245, and had a few more receptions (125) but both are classified by TheDraftnetwork.com's scouting report as receiving tight ends only with little blocking ability.
Dayton's Adam Trautman might be the most intriguing tight end. At 6-6, 251, he has the size to block well and had 111 receptions the past two seasons. So he understands how to get open, but the competition he faced is an issue. The upcoming Senior Bowl will tell more about his blocking ability and the competition.
Twitter@BearsOnMaven
