With NFL teams opening training camp, the Chicago Bears are fully invested in a brand-new era. Gone are the days of ho-hum head coaches who produce nothing but word salad. Enter: the Ben Johnson era.
Along with the previous era coming to a close comes some former players who were clearly not a fit. Specifically, we're talking about a former favorite of Shane Waldron who is no longer in Chicago. In fact, he currently doesn't have a job: tight end Gerald Everett.
Everett's fall from grace was pretty rapid, considering he was coming off of five-straight seasons with at least 400 receiving yards. In his only year with the Bears, Everett finished with eight catches for 36 yards. He would play just 22 percent of snaps for Chicago in 2024.
Gerald Everett's career took a turn for the worse in Chicago, and it hasn't yet gotten better
Once Waldron decided to give more important reps to Cole Kmet, Everett's impact almost immediately became zero. Now, it appears the rest of the league is in agreement with what Bears fans saw last year in the early going.
Everett still doesn't have a job, and the 31-year-old is watching as the league opens training camps without him. As we speak, Year 9 is beginning in the worst way possible for the former second-round pick.
Any hopes of Everett coming back to Chicago, after his initial release, were dashed when the Bears signed Durham Smythe, who knows Ben Johnson from their time together in Miami. Not that fans wanted to see Everett come back, but if he had any hope, himself, of a return, Smythe's arrival put that to bed.
At this point, it might be a situation where Everett has to wait for an injury to occur elsewhere. If he could make a return to a team like the Los Angeles Chargers or even reunite with Waldron in Jacksonville, maybe that becomes a possibility.
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For now, retirement looks like a more plausible outcome than training camp, though.