Getty Former Chicago Bears TE Dax Raymond
The tight ends room of the Chicago Bears has become a bit of a league-wide joke. After taking Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet with the 43rd overall in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft, the Bears had amassed a whopping 10 tight ends, which sent Twitter into a bit of a frenzy.
The Packers struggled defending tight ends last season.
The Bears now have 10 tight ends on their roster.
That’s one way to try to win back the NFC North.
Bears GM Ryan Pace with all of his tight ends
Bears fans: Why do we have 10 tight ends
Ryan Pace:
A few days after the draft, the team is now back to single-digit tight ends, however. The Bears have waived tight end Dax Raymond, the team announced via their Twitter account Monday morning.
#Bears Roster Update:
We have waived TE Dax Raymond.
The release of Raymond isn’t the slightest bit surprising, and it’s the first of many cuts that will need to take place in order to trim the proverbial fat in that room.
The Bears signed Raymond, an undrafted free agent out of Utah State, to their practice squad last season, and he never saw the field. Chicago picked him up last summer after the team saw potential in him. Bears scout, David Williams, said the following about Raymond: “This is an individual who’s smart, he’s competitive and he’s versatile,” Williams said. “Guys at Utah State, you want to see them stand out relative to the rest of their Mountain West competition, and he’s a guy who really stood out from a receiving standpoint.”
With a sea of tight ends, the Bears will be forced to narrow the group down to four or five. The nine remaining tight ends on the Bears roster include: Jimmy Graham, Demetrius Harris, Adam Shaheen, Ben Braunecker, Jesper Horsted, J.P. Holtz, Eric Saubert and Darion Clark.
Predicting Bears Tight Ends Room for 2020 NFL Season
Last season for Chicago, Trey Burton, Adam Shaheen, Ben Braunecker, J.P. Holtz, Jesper Horsted and Eric Saubert all saw limited action, with Bradley Sowell alternately being used as a practice squad and/or roster place-holder. Sowell is now a free agent, and will likely not be re-signed by the Bears, and the team parted ways with Burton recently.
Shaheen, a former second-round bust, was rumored to be on the trade block (with zero takers) and will also very likely be gone in 2020. Newly signed veterans Graham and Harris, are both shoo-ins to make the roster, as is new acquisition Kmet. The Bears just signed Graham to a two-year, $16 million deal, and they also nabbed a solid blocking tight end who is very familiar with Matt Nagy’s offense in Harris. Kmet will presumably be the future of the position, so he’s a lock.
That leaves Braunecker, Holtz, Horsted and Saubert. We’ll eliminate Saubert immediately, as he caught just one pass and played in two games all of last season. The team may keep five tight ends this season, but it wouldn’t be a shock if they carried just four. Braunecker has the most experience in Nagy’s system, and if the team takes just four, my money is on Graham, Kmet, Harris and Braunecker. I think Holtz would win the final slot in the roster if Chicago goes with five, and I see Horsted on the practice squad, if he’s not outright released.
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