The Chicago Bears signed Dante Pettis to a deal of just over $1M this past offseason. When they signed the deal they had no idea that Pettis would be the one who led the team in snaps, but that just so happened to be the way that things broke.
Since he signed a one-year deal, the team will now have to decide if what he did was worth bringing back. They certainly should know what they have in Pettis.
Should Chicago Bears re-sign Dante Pettis?
The case to re-sign Pettis is simple. It is clear that he hit the coach’s demands for how a player should work throughout the season. He consistently remained in the good graces of the coaching staff. Pettis started as an outside wideout, and when Darnell Mooney got injured, they moved him into the slot more often.
Beyond that, he took over the punt return job when Velus Jones could not. For a cheap deal, it is hard not to like.
On the flip side, Pettis only saw so much work because of the awful options Chicago presented. The thought is that they cannot give Justin Fields these types of players again, so Pettis has to go.
Dante Pettis averaged 0.8 yards per route run. Only four players played over 200 snaps and had yards per route run lower. That is Tyquan Thornton. David Bell, A.J. Green, and Keelan Cole. These are not the names that you want to be with.
The Chicago Bears already re-signed Equanimeous St. Brown. They already have Chase Claypool and Darnell Mooney. They still have Velus Jones too. Even if Pettis was ahead of Jones, they have to give Jones a chance to beat out Pettis at some point.
When you factor in that the team should be adding one or two bigger-name wideouts, there is no room for Pettis in the top five and potentially not the top six. Pettis starting that much is good for him but was bad for the Chicago Bears, and he should be on a new team next year.