The Bears apply the franchise tag on veteran wide receiver Allen Robinson, the group reported Tuesday.
The Bears and Robinson’s agent failed to agree on a long-term deal during last season, forcing Chicago to apply the tag or risk losing Robinson – the club’s top receiver the previous three years – in free agency.
Brandon Parker, Robinson’s agent, told Schefter in September that Robinson was troubled that the Bears had declined to bringing to the table him top-market cash for a wide collector, yet that neither Robinson nor Parker mentioned an exchange advance of a year ago’s NFL trade deadline.
“We have a history of extending our players,” Bears general manager Ryan Pace said last week. “We usually find a way to make that work. The proof is kind of in the pudding with that. And every one of them is different. Every one of them is personal, and that’s why I’m sensitive, and I hope you guys understand, about talking about that in the media.
“But it’s a process. It takes both sides to work through that, and every one of them is unique. I do like to lean on our history. I think [director of football administration] Joey Laine does a great job of working through that and building relationships with those agents. Allen has a really good agent that we’ve worked with in the past, and it’s a process. We’re kind of going through that.”
Robinson, 27, caught a career high 102 passes for 1,250 yards in 2020 even as the Bears’ offense battled to discover its notch until a late-season three-game series of wins permitted Chicago to sneak into the playoffs at 8-8.
In 2019, Robinson likewise drove the Bears with 98 receptions for 1,147 yards and seven scores. Robinson went through four years in Jacksonville (2014 to 2017), where he procured a solicitation to the Pro Bowl subsequent to getting 80 passes for 1,400 yards and 14 scores in 2015.
Robinson endured a season-finishing knee injury in Week 1 of 2017, his last year in Jacksonville, and was not completely solid for the Bears in 2018. All things considered, he recorded 55 receptions for 754 yards and four scores 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 kind of in the middle of,” Pace said. “And we gotta work through it.”