It’s hard to not get excited about the signing of Allen Robinson; this is huge for the Bears. They’ve given Allen Robinson forty-two million reasons to be a part of this young nucleus. Chicago is a young offensive team. I don’t see any reason this wouldn’t help second-year Mitch Trubisky take the next step in his career. The industry has already been abuzz with the hiring of coach Matt Nagy now adding Allen Robinson to that mix, I’m more than buzzing on Mitch Trubisky.

Not sure I want to go so far as to say I’m high as hell on Mitch, but I’m pretty damn high on Mitch. Mitch Trubisky was only good for 196 completions out of 330 attempts for a 59.4% completion percentage in his rookie season. I’m not saying that percentage is great but what Mitch needed, in my opinion, was volume, and stability. Outside of Tarik Cohen and Adam Shaheen I can’t think of a receiving weapon, prior to the addition of Allen Robinson that I was excited about on the Bears. Look for Robinson to be a target monster.

What do the Bears get with Allen Robinson

They get a very seasoned 6’3” 220 pounds 24-year-old wide receiver going into his 5th NFL season.

2014

He was drafted as a 20-year-old and received his first the start of his NFL career week three of 2014 against the Colts. Finishing his rookie season with 48 receptions, 548 yards two touchdowns averaging a career-low 11.4 yards per reception in 10 games. All this catching passes from Chad Henne and then rookie QB Blake Bortles. Having his rookie season cut short due to a stress fracture in his right foot.

2015

This season is a large part of the reason Allen Robinson stock has maintained so well. The team hadn’t done a lot in the offseason to help their young QB or WR out. They drafted T.J. Yeldon, who until Leonard Fournette was drafted, was arguably the teams most productive back since Maurice Drew Jones. Still, Allen Robinson finished that season with 80 receptions, for 1,400 yards 14 touchdowns averaging a career-high 17.5 yards per reception. Allen Robinson played 16 games and finished the season ranked WR4 in fantasy.

2016

The regression year, and oh was it rough. Within a few weeks, we already knew we weren’t getting a return on the draft capital back on Robinson. The bright side is he did play in each of 16 games. It wasn’t great though, YPR were down TDS were down and only seven fewer receptions than the previous year. Allen Robinson finished 2016 with 73 receptions, only 6 touchdowns 883 yards at 12.1 yards per reception and his first NFL fumble, 201 NFL career receptions with mediocre QB play and only NFL fumble to this point. So many disappointed owners and soured owners after 2016.

2017

We all know how this began and ended. One reception, 17 yards end of story. I wish we had the opportunity to see Allen Robinson with this version of Blake Bortles, who seemed to have improved in 2017. I wish we had a glimpse of Allen Robinson playing with a running back as good as Leonard Fournette. I can’t help but wonder what would have transpired had he stayed healthy last year.

Allen Robinson leaves the Jaguars with 202 receptions, 2,848 yards at 14.1 YPR 22 touchdowns in 43 of the 64 games he’s been with the Jacksonville Jaguars.

Matchmakers.Arob

It’s still sinking in, but I’m pretty excited for Allen Robinson in Chicago this year. This will be good for him and Mitch Trubisky. A WR like Arob should open up the run game and allow them to take pressure off less noteworthy WRs as well.

I’m going to pump the brakes a little here. So I had all of the above and some below ready to go. Sent to editors and waiting for them to tell me it’s been released. Not so fast, @DFF_Shane wants me to stop and add why I believe Mitch Trubisky and Allen Robinson will be a good match for each other. I guess he has a point and that sounds important, so let me see what I missed.

Well not a lot, I guess I learned that our editors don’t read our articles? Maybe he missed that Allen Robinson was successful with Blake Bortles and started his career with Chad Henne. I don’t believe that Allen Robinson’s situation gets worse with Mitch, in fact as time goes by I think we will see that Mitch is an upgrade for Arob.

Maybe he didn’t read the part where I said I don’t think any of last years remaining Bears wide receivers are worth talking about.

At 6’3” Allen Robinson will be the unquestioned number one WR. Sure you could say that about almost any team Robinson could have signed with. The Bears, however, had no one at wide receiver, Allen Robinson should be a target monster. When I say no one, I mean no one.

With Mike Glennon and Mitch Trubisky both under center last year, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to break down the receiving stats. Fourteen players caught passes on the Bears last year; so we’ll use a threshold of a player with 50 yards or more receiving yards. With that rule in mind, we will be losing three players, seven receptions for about forty-nine yards and zero touchdowns. We will be accounting for 265 receptions, 2765 yards, and 12 touchdowns. For starters, that’s not a lot to account for as a team. Let’s see where the stats went.

The Running backs

Jordan Howard, Tarik Cohen, and Benny Cunningham combined for 96 receptions, 718 yards and 3 of 12 reception touchdowns. That’s 36.2% of receptions, 25.97% of yards and 25% of the receiving touchdowns to the running back position.

Tarik Cohen 53 receptions, 353 yards, and 1 touchdown.

Jordan Howard 23 receptions, 125 yards, zero touchdowns

Benny Cunningham 20 receptions, 240 yards, and 1 touchdown

The Tight Ends

Zach Miller, Adam Shaheen, Dion Sim and you guessed it Daniel Brown combined 60 receptions, 672 yards and 6 of 12 reception touchdowns. So let’s break that down as well. The TEs were accountable for 22.64% of receptions, 24.3% of yards and 50% of receiving touchdowns.

Zach Miller 20 receptions, 236 yards, and 2 touchdowns

Adam Shaheen 12 receptions, 127 yards, and 3 touchdowns

Dion Sims 15 receptions, 180 yards, and 1 touchdown

Daniel Brown 13 receptions, 129 yards, zero touchdowns

The Wide receivers

This leaves us with 41.1% of the receptions going to the wide receivers, 49.7% of yards and 25% of the receiving touchdowns. Maybe I’m taking the keyword of the position wide “receiver” a little too serious, but this is pitiful. The group of wide receivers didn’t eclipse 50% in any of these receiving stats.

Kendall Wright 59 receptions, 614 yards, and 1 touchdown

Josh Bellamy 24 receptions, 376 yards, and 1 touchdown

Dontrelle Inman 23 receptions, 334 yards, and 1 touchdown

Markus Wheaton 3 receptions, 51 yards, and zero touchdowns

Chicago has needs and the above have not and will not come close to meeting them.

Back to Matchmakers.Arob

To say that Allen Robinson fits a huge need is an understatement. As I mentioned above 2014 was Allen Robinson’s rookie season, and he played only 10 games. Making it Allen Robinson’s worst statistical season. I would argue he still had a better season than the Bears best receiver last year. What Arob brings to the field and the pressure he will take off Mitch Trubisky and whoever else will be catching passes is huge. For any receiver to have 14 touchdowns as Allen Robinson did in 2015 is huge, not just any player can go out and real in 14 touchdowns from Blake Bortles. The more I write, the more excited I get.

2014 48 receptions, 548 yards, 2 touchdowns

2015 80 receptions, 1,400 yards, 14 touchdowns

2016 73 receptions, 883 yards, 6 touchdowns

2017 1 reception, 17 yards season-ending injury

His size, skill set and ability to get open give Chicago a WR they haven’t had since Alshon Jeffery left. He gives their young up and coming quarterback someone to grow with. A Detroit Michigan native, the cold winds of Chicago, won’t be new to Allen Robinson. All Allen and Mitch will need is some time together, maybe a couple of dates before the big dance.

There will be growing pains

Mitch Trubisky and Allen Robinson will likely have some ups and downs while they get to know each other. I encourage owners to use patience with both of them and don’t sell low if the beginning of 2018 is rocky.

That said I also encourage those who want to buy Allen Robinson to wait for the dust to settle and if you can maybe wait and see if those growing pains occur and buy low. If he does well his price won’t get much higher he will just be tougher to pry. Hype will almost always affect the market.

Trey Burton

The Bears have been very active in the first part of free agency also landing Trey Burton on a four year thirty-two million dollar deal. My hope is that this move would be to use Burton between the 20’s and have Shaheen still develop into a nice red zone option for Mitch.

Thanks for reading. You can find me on Twitter @DFF_Swag.