Cutting Trey Burton Leaves Bears Needing a Tight End in NFL Draft

Analysis: Losing their centerpiece tight end now means the draft has to provide a player at this position during what is generally agreed to be a bad year for tight ends

Cutting tight end Trey Burton drastically changed the draft day landscape for the Chicago Bears.

It's only one entry at a position where the Bears had a logjam of players, but it was like removing the log at the bottom of the stack. Everything collapsed.

Burton was the experienced tight end in the system, the one they knew would be running the right routes and playing the role of "adjuster" within the Matt Nagy offense. Newcomer Jimmy Graham would need to learn it. The rest of the tight end group lacked the speed or combination of speed and receiving ability to be the U-tight end with knowledge of the offense like Burton had.

Now it's all different. Graham will turn 34 during this season and obviously hasn't run like early in his career over the last two seasons. His contract is only for two years.

The player who is going to take the U-tight end position for the future is no longer in Chicago. Burton received $32 million over four years for this and didn't last into his third season.

Someone else needs to do it and the Bears have seen enough of Jesper Horsted, J.P. Holtz, Eric Saubert and a cast of thousands to know they lack an answer at U-tight end. The solution is obvious.

They have to draft a tight end.

Saying this 24 hours ago would have been grounds for questioning someone's sanity. No more. A team with bad needs for a safety, a cornerback and a wide receiver in this draft just created another need for themselves—not exactly what most teams try to do at this point in the predraft process.  

You have to wonder if it was worth it and why it happened now.

Doing it just before the draft like this tips their draft hand. Teams have to know they're looking to draft one of the top tight ends and will be trying to hold them up for ransom. Why not wait until at least next week? Why couldn't they just have done it weeks ago? It would have been given Burton more of advantage to land with a team needing a tight end in free agency, someone who might otherwise have gone ahead and spent money on something they didn't need when a veteran was available.

Or is it possible the Bears found out some medical news about Burton and rehab from his latest surgery they didn't know earlier? The last word from GM Ryan Pace was all the rehabbing players would be ready for training camp.

There is not word from the Bears now but Ryan Pace will talk with the media two days before the draft and it's certain to be the first item on everyone's mind.

The Bears seem to have created complete uncertainty at tight end more than anything. Jimmy Graham is no Y-tight end because he's no blocker, in-line or otherwise.

Pace and Nagy have lauded Harris' blocking but he really wasn't a Y-tight end full time with the Kansas City Chiefs in this offense before he went to Cleveland. It almost seems they're counting on a comeback from Adam Shaheen at Y-tight end, but before you can make a comeback you need to have actually established yourself and then fallen. No one has seen a thing from Shaheen yet, and it's Year 4.

The Bears spent plenty of time talking with tight end Brycen Hopkins from Purdue this offseason. Earlier he talked to them at the Senior Bowl and combine, but Bearreport.com lists another discussion recently he had via video with them, as well.

Whoever the player is, they're going to need a year to adjust. Tight end is rarely a position where players walk in out of college and excel. Cases in point: George Kittle, 43 catches as a rookie, 88 in Year 2; Zach Ertz, 36 catches as a rookie, 58 in Year 2; Travis Kelce injured in Year 1 and no catches, then 67; Austin Hooper, 19 catches as a rookie, 49 in Year 2.

If the Bears are interested in Hopkins, they may not even need to spend a pick on a tight end in Round 2. They could probably trade down and acquire him in Rounds 3 or later.

Kevin Hanson's latest Sports Illustrated mock draft puts Hopkins down as a fourth-rounder.

It's not regarded as a good tight end class.

This is the fate the Bears made for themselves, to be looking for tight ends in a bad year for it while everyone else is trying to catch someone from an avalanche of great wide receivers. And they're doing it while they have three positions of greater need, if not four.

It leaves plenty of questions as yet unanswered about the strategy the Bears are using to solve a bad situation at a position Nagy regards as critical within this offense.

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