Chicago Bears: 5 Best decisions of the 2020 offseason

The Chicago Bears cut Trey Burton and replace him with Jimmy Graham and Cole Kmet

Remember when the Chicago Bears brought Trey Burton in to be the next Travis Kelce or Zach Ertz? Yeah, that worked out really well did it not? To be fair, Burton did very well for half of his first season with the Chicago Bears. He had a career year with over 550 yards and six touchdowns. He was a top-10 tight end statistically and then things drastically changed.

When he was a late scratch for the playoff game versus the Eagles (his previous team), many questioned his mental ability. The “injury” was a groin injury that mysteriously happened in practice leading up to the game. However, many have come to realize that Burton suffers from anxiety. Although this is not necessarily a bad thing (many people do), it might have played a factor in not playing versus the Eagles in the 2018 playoff loss and carried over into the following year.

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The injury definitely carried over into 2019 and Burton was never the same. He only caught 14 of his 24 targets for 84 yards. His catch rate was the worst of his career at 58.3 percent. To put that in perspective, his career average is 67.2 percent. If we remove that season, his catch rate is actually 70.5 percent. Burton was also unable to find the end zone last year — something he had not done since his sophomore year in 2015 when he only had four targets.

The Chicago Bears knew they could not count on Burton again for 2020. Ryan Pace went out and signed Jimmy Graham as soon as free agency started. This was a major move despite many fans not being happy about it. Graham is getting a little long in the tooth, but he will bring plenty to the offense with his 626 yards-per-season average since leaving the Saints in 2015.

To top it off, the Bears drafted Cole Kmet with the first pick (second round) of the 2020 NFL Draft. Kmet might not make a huge impact in 2020 since most rookie tight ends do not, but he looks to be a solid prospect for the future. Adding Demetrius Harris is a very underhyped signing as well. This tight end group is a big upgrade over the group the team pieced together in 2019.