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Why the Chicago Bears should stay away from Jarvis Landry

By Khari Thompson

(Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images)
(Photo by Brett Carlsen/Getty Images) /
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Chicago Bears fans want to see a high-priced free agent come to town after three years of underspending. But that high-priced guy shouldn’t be Jarvis Landry.

Though Jarvis Landry is the hot name on the free agent market that Chicago Bears fans want, perhaps they could find better value at the receiver position elsewhere.

As soon as the Chicago Bears can start negotiating with free agents on March 12, one name will attract the most attention among Bears fans.

That would be current (but possibly about to be former) Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jarvis Landry.

A former 2014 second-round pick, Landry has carved out a good career as a slot receiver in Miami. Over his first four seasons, he has averaged 100 catches per season on the dot and 1009 receiving yards, scored between 5-6 touchdowns a season and made three Pro Bowls.

Not bad at all.

However, are those numbers worthy of a guy being paid #1-receiver money? Because that’s what Landry wants, and he’s not going to back down from it.

Landry has reportedly grown frustrated with the Dolphins’ contract extension offers, calling them “disrespectful”. And he has made it quite clear that he does not intend to take a hometown discount and wants to be paid as a top receiver.

That means making money in the realm of Antonio Brown ($17 million a year) or Julio Jones ($14.2 million a year). Ok…stop the tape.

Despite having just three touchdowns this season, Jones also had 1,444 yards receiving this year and averages almost 1,300 per season.

That, and he does all of this despite drawing everyone’s best coverage schemes every single game. Truthfully, Jones has probably seen every kind of coverage a receiver can possibly see and beats it anyway.

Though Landry has produced well in his career, his dominance doesn’t come near Jones’.

And don’t even start trying to compare Landry to Brown, especially over the last four seasons. You don’t want any part of trying to bridge that statistical gulf.

Let’s put it this way: do we expect that Landry can put up three seasons of 1,500+ yards in his past four seasons, average 11 TDs and over 100 yards per game? He certainly hasn’t put up anything near that in his career.

You can try to push that off onto Tannehill, Jay Cutler or the offense, but the eye test suggests differently.

Watch Jarvis Landry on film and you’ll see a guy that, while he gets open plenty and can rack up yards after the catch, just isn’t very explosive. And that will hurt him against top-flight corners who may follow him around.

He’s certainly a major upgrade over Kendall Wright as a slot guy given his production and tackle-breaking ability.

But he won’t take the top off anyone’s defense as he lacks great deep speed. Even if you don’t care about what he supposedly ran at the Combine, that lack of elite speed is obvious when you watch him.

He’s not big enough to consistently fight for 50/50-type balls, working primarily over the middle instead of on the outside.

And he’s desperately reliant on yards after the catch to help out his production. More than half his 4,038 career yards have come after the catch (2,191). While he’s clearly great at racking up YAC, he averaged just 3.1 air yards per reception last year.

The moment people start tackling him, the jig is up.

Can he transition into a role as a more complete receiver and deep threat? He’s still young enough to evolve a bit at age 25, but his physical skill set doesn’t suggest so.

The point is: would the Chicago Bears actually benefit from paying Landry $15+ million a year to rack up catches and YAC without being a true # 1 receiver? For the value that they’d be getting, it seems like a reach.

Might not a better free agent target be Paul Richardson (44 catches, 703 yards, six TDs)? He’s another young receiver (25 years old) who started to emerge with Russell Wilson as a big-play threat in 2017.

Plus, he’ll cost substantially less than Landry for possibly comparable production (outside of catches), which would be a far better value.

Or how about Allen Robinson, should he return to 100 percent soon and not be retained by Jacksonville?

Now, that’s going to be a bit of stretch, obviously. That move would risk angering Chicago Bears fans with a bad taste in their mouths due to Kevin White’s and Markus Wheaton’s injury issues. Why take on another guy with an injury past?

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Still, in terms of value (possibly on a short-term deal), signing Robinson may yet be a better move than Landry.

First off, Robinson likely wouldn’t be able to command true top-receiver money coming off of his ACL injury. Though he’d likely make $10+ million, he’d likely still come in under Landry’s price.

And when healthy, everyone knows Robinson is a real # 1 receiver. As bad as Blake Bortles is, even he couldn’t keep Robinson from his monster 1,400-yard, 14-TD season in 2015 and 73 catches for 883 yards in 2016.

Given that Robinson’s injury occurred early in the 2017 season, like Cameron Meredith‘s, he could be healthy enough to play most of 2018.

At the very least, the Chicago Bears should monitor his situation very closely. Because a healthy Robinson is more impactful on the whole than Landry.

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Yes, Landry clearly comes into this free agent class as the wideout with the most pedigree and production. No one can deny that part.

But is he the best investment for the Chicago Bears, even with a wealth of free agent money? That’s a legitimate question. And if we want to be honest, the answer is probably no.

The Bears can’t just throw money at someone just to do it. It has to represent good value. And if you didn’t want to spend #1 \-receiver money on Alshon Jeffery, who at his best is undoubtedly better than Landry, why would you pay it to Landry?

He’s simply not worth that, and if Ryan Pace doesn’t want to pay that, fans shouldn’t be mad.

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