Last year, the Chicago Bears made a trade to acquire a former first-round wide receiver in N’Keal Harry, bringing him over from the New England Patriots.
It was a low-risk trade, for only a seventh-round pick, and fans couldn’t be mad at that. In fact, there was a bit of optimism that Harry might be able to break out after a fresh start. After all, he was a first-round talent not too long ago.
Unfortunately, the optimism did not last too long. The Bears only used him on 40 percent of offensive snaps in the games he was active for. That actually sounds like a decent amount of playing time, but out of the 176 brief snaps he played, Harry was only targeted nine times.
Of those nine targets, he caught seven of them for 116 yards and one touchdown. That’s not exactly an inspiring season total for a guy you traded for. It would have been a heck of a single game, but a full season? Woof.
It would be shocking to see the Chicago Bears re-sign wide receiver N’Keal Harry in free agency
This will likely get chalked up as a loss for general manager Ryan Poles, who has to address the wide receiver position in a big way this offseason.
Now, when Harry was on the field and targeted, he looked the part. It was actually a mystery as to why he was rarely used. That was a big question fans had at the end of the season. Why trade for a guy like that if you’re not going to use him?
There has to be more underlying issues, there, that we don’t know as fans.
Regardless, the Bears probably won’t bring him back. Knowing they have Chase Claypool, Darnell Mooney, Velus Jones Jr. and the already re-signed Equanimeous St. Brown, that’s four spots locked up without a true number one.
Now, it’s up to Poles to go out and get a true number one option at wide receiver, and that’s simply not Harry. As much as Bears fans would have loved it to be true, the team clearly wasn’t going that direction when it was all said and done.
