CHICAGO – The Bears have placed the franchise label on veteran receiver Allen Robinson, sources told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Tuesday.
The Bears and Robinson agent did not reach a long-term deal last season, which forced Chicago to apply the label or lose the chance to win Robinson – the club’s best receiver for the past three years – to lose.
Brandon Parker, Robinson’s agent, told Schefter in September that Robinson was unhappy that the Bears refused to offer money to a wide receiver, but that neither Robinson nor Parker requested a deal before the deadline. NFL last year.
“We have a history of expanding our players,” Bears general manager Ryan Pace said last week. “We usually find a way to make it work. The proof is in the pudding with it. And everyone is different. Each of them is personal, and that’s why I’m sensitive, and I hope you understand, to talk about it in the media. talk.
“But it’s a process. It takes both sides to work it through, and each of them is unique. I like to rely on our history. I think [director of football administration] Joey Laine does an excellent job of working it through and building relationships with those agents. Allen has a very good agent we’ve worked with in the past, and it’s a process. We go through it similarly. ‘
Robinson (27) got 102 passes for 1,250 yards in 2020, even though the Bears offense struggled to find its groove until a try in the late-season Chicago could give Chicago a chance to get to 8-8 in the playoffs. .
In 2019, Robinson also led the Bears with 98 receptions for 1,147 yards and seven touchdowns. Robinson spent four years in Jacksonville (2014 to 2017), where he earned an invitation to the Pro Bowl after receiving 80 passes for 1,400 yards and 14 touchdowns in 2015.
Robinson suffered a season-ending knee injury in Week 1 of 2017, his final year in Jacksonville, and was not entirely healthy for the Bears in 2018. Nevertheless, he recorded 55 receptions for 754 yards and four touchdowns in 13 games played.
‘I know Allen wants to be a Chicago Bear [long-term] and we want him to be a Chicago Bear, and it’s a sensitive process that we’re in the middle of, ‘Pace said.’ And we have to work it through. ‘