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When the 2019 season ended and Allen Robinson ended up leading the Chicago Bears in receiving yards for a second consecutive year, it was a near certainty that the team would extend Robinson’s three year contract beyond the 2020 season.
The team obviously wanted the hard working 26-year old to stick around and Robinson expressed a desire to end up as the franchise’s all-time receiving leader and to retire a Bear. “With the longevity of the organization and players who have come before here, goals like that are big. Being the all-time leading receiver for a franchise like the Chicago Bears is special,” Robinson told the Sun Times way back in December. “I’ve really enjoyed my two years. We’ve won a lot of games. From an organization standpoint, it’s a top-flight organization and coaching staff.”
He reiterated a desire to stay in Chicago in January while at the Super Bowl’s media week. “I love Chicago. As I’ve said from Day 1, it’s somewhere that I want to retire,” he said via NBC Sports Chicago. “At the end of the day, as far as playing more years in Chicago, that’s not solely on me. For me, where I’m at right now, it’s about controlling what I can control. I love Chicago. I want to be there long-term, if they’ll have me.”
Surly the Bears will have him. He’s still relatively young and he’s healthy, he’s very productive and he’s not only great in the locker room, but in the community as well. Everything about his screams ‘Bear for life.’
But he’s still waiting on that contract extension and in June he said this.
“If something gets done, something gets done,” Robinson said on a conference call, via Sports Illustrated. “But at the end of the day that’s left up to the Bears and my agent. But for me personally, to be quite honest, I don’t really concern myself with that too much.
“I’m just looking forward to this 2020 season. I’m definitely excited for it. I’m definitely ready to get going. Whatever happens, happens.”
Robinson and Bears general manager Ryan Pace have had some initial discussions, “(An extension is) obviously something we’ve talked about,” Pace said via NBC Sports Chicago back in April. “He’s a good player and does a lot for our team on and off the field and he’s a guy we’d like to have a Bear for a long time.”
But here we are in mid-July, and there’s still no extension and Robinson doesn’t seem like one is on the horizon either.
Earlier today he was a guest on ESPN 1000’s Carmen and Jurko show and the subject of a new deal came up. When asked if he and the Bears have spoken recently he said they haven’t and neither he nor his agent have heard anything.
From NBC Sports Chicago:
“I think just as far as me and my agent, from a the conversations that we’ve had, we’re not necessarily anticipating hearing anything at this point. For us, we’re going into camp preparing ourselves to have a good year. If that comes up and they reach out to my agent, I’m sure they’ll have pretty good discussions and things like that, but again, that hasn’t happened yet. Maybe it will happen. I can’t predict the future, so I don’t know if that will happen at all. For myself, with this being my second time going into a contract year, I know how to mentally prepare myself and I know how to block all that out.”
This offseason hasn’t been normal in any way for the NFL, with the CBA negotiations taking place early on and the pandemic wiping out most of the summer work-outs, but with training camp slated to start at the end of the month there’s still plenty of time for the Bears and Robinson to get something done.
Pace and the Bears have also made a habit of announcing deals like this right before the regular season starts, so maybe this thing is close enough where one more good negotiation is all it’ll take for both sides to come to an agreement.
I know I’ve had my ‘Allen Robinson signs a contract extension’ pre-write done since February, so it’ll happen at some point.
Right?
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