Bears: It’s time to put Trey Burton on IR
It’s time for the Chicago Bears to end Trey Burton’s frustrating season.
For the Chicago Bears offense to run as effectively as it’s capable of, it needs significant contributions from its tight end group. All offseason, we highlighted this group as being critical to the offense’s success and Mitchell Trubisky‘s development.
Unfortunately, the season got off to an ominous start for the most important player in that group — Trey Burton. For starters, there was a cloud of uncertainty around his sports hernia surgery that impacted his ability to be ready for the start of the season. A surgery that typically involves a 7-8 week recovery ended up being more than twice that long.
It has not gotten better for Burton or the Bears — starting with his performance when he’s actually on the field. This season, Burton has 14 receptions for 84 measly yards. That’s a putrid season from someone the Bears were counting on to be a dynamic contributor and safety blanket for their young quarterback.
Beyond the poor performance on the field, Burton continues to work through a litany of injuries that have seen him limited in practice, or missing games altogether.
At this point, it’s more than fair to ask whether it’s time to end his season and place him on injured reserve. In short, the answer is they absolutely should.
Burton simply cannot get healthy for whatever reason, and the more he tries to healthy, the worse it seems to get. Perhaps it makes sense to shut him down and let him heal.
Moreover, it’s not as if he’s contributing anything on the field, so they’re not going to miss anything by placing him on IR. If he was contributing to the team and was a threat each week, then it would make sense to do everything you can to get him on the field for a team chasing a longshot playoff berth. But the reality is he’s not a threat as a receiver in the passing game or as a blocker in the running game.
At this point, then, the Bears should be looking to see what they have on the roster and whether a guy like Jesper Horsted can step in next year at the position. Perhaps Dax Raymond could get a look as well. If not, then the Bears will have to sign a free agent (with limited space and many other needs) or devote one of their early (and limited) draft picks to the position.
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Before they get to that point, why not see if they can address the need with someone already on the practice squad.