Alshon Jeffery leaving was the doomsday scenario Chicago Bears fans had hoped to avoid. The last thing a team that just finished 3-13 can afford is letting one of its best offensive playmakers walk for nothing in return. Sadly it appears this will be the case after an announcement that Chicago would not use the franchise tag for a second year on the 26-year old.
It’s easy to lay blame at the Bears’ feet for this fiasco, but the truth is people don’t know for sure what’s happened behind the scenes. It could be the team made a strong push to extend him long-term but Jeffery may not want to stay in Chicago. Not an unheard of possibility at all. Or maybe the team felt it had some good reasons to not overpay to keep him.
Here are some of the most likely that would help explain it.
Injury history
If there is one thing this Bears regime is trying to curb, it’s having players on the roster who aren’t reliable. Jeffery didn’t exactly make a great impression to Pace or Fox in their two seasons together. He missed seven games in 2015 with various soft tissue injuries. This past year he was also playing hurt at times and then added insult to injury with a four-game suspension for PED violations. Most people also forget Jeffery missed 10 games his rookie season as well.
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Does this sound like a player in the same tier of Antonio Brown or Odell Beckham Jr., players who have missed a combined one game since 2015. Sure, Jeffery has his moments of big plays but they aren’t nearly frequent enough. A big part of why is he’s just not on the field often enough to produce them.
