5 Bears Leaving Chicago in the New Year

2. Keenan Allen - WR

Have no doubt about it — Keenan Allen will have a bust in Canton one day. His glory days are behind him at this point though.

Poles and the Bears traded a 4th round pick for the future Hall-of-Famer last offseason and at the time it was viewed as the perfect move to help aid the development of Caleb Williams. The best thing for a young quarterback is a proven receiver to be the security blanket he needs. An argument can be made that the offensive coaching staff simply hasn't used him in spots where he is at his best. Too often earlier in the year we saw him running deep routes, which does not play to his strength of elite route route running on shorter routes.

Allen should have been brought in for short yardage easy throws for Williams, but instead it seems as the offense was built entirely around him at times. At 32, Allen's days of carrying an entire passing game are gone. He currently sits at 67 receptions for 719 yards and 7 touchdowns. Outside of 2016 where he tore his ACL in week 1, the receptions are tied for the second-worst of his career and the yards for worst.

With all this being said, he is still capable of shaking defenders out of their cleats for easy touchdowns.

While it would be great to have Allen back with a new staff that hopefully has brains, he will likely be looking to cash in one more big pay day. The Bears cannot afford to allocate more money to receivers when they have already invested top-10 receiver money in D.J. Moore and chose Rome Odunze in the top 10 of the draft. And Keenan Allen knows it.

It will be interesting to see if a contender that possibly comes up short this year makes a play for Allen this offseason. I think Allen will not only be looking for that pay day, but also an opportunity at a playoff run as he has only played in 2 playoff games in his 12-year career.