Bear Digest

Balking Bears Approach Allen Robinson Deadline

The reason why Bears have kept Allen Robinson stringing along without a long-term deal is uncertain but the possibilities point more toward issues beyond production
Gene Chamberlain|
Balking Bears Approach Allen Robinson Deadline
Balking Bears Approach Allen Robinson Deadline

It's two weeks until Allen Robinson's fate is determined for 2021 and a path for the future becomes more clear.

The deadline for Robinson to receive a new long-term contract comes July 15 and there has been great wringing of hands and shoulder shrugging over why the Bears have failed to address this.

The cash crunch once provided a convenient reason, but even with about $5 million under the salary cap now the Bears could find a way to convert salary to bonus money on a new deal and prorate it for the future in a way to make their top receiver happy.

Robinson himself seems resigned now to playing the 2021 season however he must play it. 

It's as if he realizes he won't be here after this year and is going to make the best of it or the team has promised him something and there's no sense dwelling on the issue with the season approaching. He realizes there's nothing he can do except prove himself all over again.

Rather than throwing a fit of some kind, pulling pictures off social media or staying away from veteran minicamp, Robinson has been the model citizen. He wisely signed the franchise tag to make $17.9 million this year and plowed ahead, missing only the voluntary work like most members of the Bears starting defense did.

"At the end of the day, it's out of my control," Robinson said during minicamp. "It's not what I can control. Right now, I'm just focusing on things I can control, coming back, being the best player I can be, trying to help the offense continue to improve. That's the main focus for me right now, just controlling what I can.

"Helping myself to be better will help this team to be better and obviously will help us from an organizational standpoint be better than we have in the past couple of years."

Robinson is doing and saying the right thing.

He has been training with Darnell Mooney since minicamp ended, two receivers with excellent hands and route-running ability working at their trade. It's going to benefit Mooney greatly.

This week Robinson went on NFL Network and, despite attempts to squeeze more information from him, the answers were pretty much verbatim what he said at minicamp.

The truth is Robinson actually has more control in this situation than he says. He could sign a long-term deal for the money the Bears offered. This wouldn't be a satisfactory conclusion for him, though.

What isn't clear is why the Bears would consider fighting with him over cash it seems he deserves.

After all, Robinson is the No. 1 receiver at making contested catches in the NFL the past two years, according to Pro Football Focus with 98 receptions. No one was even close to him. DeVante Parker was second, with only 81 contested catches.

Robinson's potential for even more receptions is there based on better passers this season. It's well known he hasn't played with a quarterback who approached mediocrity yet. PFF called it accurately when they deemed 64% of his targets since entering the league as catchable passes, a figure which ranked near the bottom of all the receivers they evaluated.

So, with Justin Fields and Andy Dalton on the roster this year, it would seem likely Robinson will have more opportunities for catchable passes. Dalton isn't the most accurate of throwers but still rates over the course of his career as better than Mitchell Trubisky or Nick Foles. And Fields had scouts marveling at his accuracy through his college career.

Perhaps the reason for the Bears' reluctance to commit money on a grandiose scale to Robinson rests someplace other than contested catches.

It's possible they're looking at what Robinson does with the ball afterward, and his potential to go the distance on plays. Contested catches are nice because they  move the chains, but separation makes for possible touchdowns and bigger yardage after the catch. Robinson also has only cracked the top 20 in touchdown catches only once in Chicago, with seven in 2019.

The analytical website fivethirtyeight.com produced a few eye-opening metrics to measure impact receivers over the course of the 2017-2019 seasons and Robinson didn't measure up to the top 15 pass catchers. In fact, he was near the bottom of all those who were evaluated.

Players like Davante Adams, Keenan Allen, Cooper Kupp, Odell Beckham Jr and even Danny Amendola rated far higher at separation for intermediate and long passes than Robinson's efforts in 2018 and 2019. In fact, Robinson was next to last of all receivers evaluated for the metric "separation over expected" over play in 2019. Only Robby Anderson was worse.

Among other issues, Robinson has never been better than 100th in average yards after the catch per reception with the Bears, ranking 100th at 3.9 in 2018, 146th at 2.8 in 2019 and 137th in 2020 with 3.1 according to Sportradar via Pro Football Reference.

But this doesn't make Robinson overrated. He's simply a different kind of receiver.

Calvin Ridley has been worse at these statistics over the past few years than Robinson, and Atlanta was willing to get rid of Julio Jones because it deemed Ridley now No. 1 on its depth chart.

Of course, every single one of these metrics or statistics would be altered greatly with a good or average quarterback throwing. 

No one would have confused Mitchell Trubisky or Blake Bortles with being good or average, but this is what Robinson had to work with over the years. The Bears were willing to turn to new quarterbacks this year, which indicates they finally realize the role lack of accurate passing played in holding back their attack. 

It's too bad for Robinson but he can't get back those years.

The biggest obstacle in Robinson's way to getting a huge, long-term deal might not be inability to get separation on passes or yards after the catch or even touchdown receptions. It could be a simple matter of bad timing.

At age 28 and with four Bears seasons behind him, would the Bears be willing to commit to a longer-term huge contract for him when Roquan Smith will need a huge contract in 2022, if not before then? Running back David Montgomery will be in line for a bigger pay day after 2022, as well.

It's almost as though Robinson is being considered by the Bears as a bridge receiver to the next big pass-catching threat in the draft or free agency following this season.

It's possible they think they need a receiver now who can produce with the ball after making a catch because they have quarterbacks capable of getting the ball there, when before they needed the receiver who could make the difficult catch because the quarterback wasn't capable of getting it to him. 

It could also be the Bears value other positions like inside linebacker and running back more than a receiver who has the ability to haul in passes under the worst of circumstances.

If that's the case, it will be some other team reaping the benefits in 2022 from one of the game's most dependable targets. 

And without Robinson to learn on, the Bears would find the true value of what they actually had, regardless of who is throwing the passes.

Twitter: BearDigest@BearsOnMaven

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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.

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