A year ago at this time, the question about Adam Shaheen wasn’t if he’d be good — it was how good he’d be.
As it turns out, that wasn’t the right question to ask while Shaheen impressed during helmets-and-shorts OTA practices. Bodying up a defensive back without pads looked nice, but wasn’t a predictor of how the rookie from Division-II Ashland would fair during the regular season.
“Really I was pretty blind to it all last year, I was just trying to run the right route and catch the ball,” Shaheen said. “So it’s not like this year where I really feel like you understand football in Year 2.”
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Shaheen played the fourth-fewest snaps (239) among Bears’ tight ends last year, behind Dion Sims (580), Zach Miller (314) and Daniel Brown (241). Granted, Shaheen only was the “Y” tight end in the Bears’ offense, and missed the final three weeks of the season due to a chest injury — but that lack of usage was because, fairly or unfairly, John Fox and Dowell Loggains didn’t quite trust him.
So Shaheen only was targeted 14 times in 13 games, catching 12 of those for 127 yards with a team-high three touchdowns. Even with the NFL’s low success rate of rookie tight ends, those numbers were underwhelming.
But Shaheen is expecting to make a significant jump in Year 2 as a pro, as he alluded to above.
“It’s so much different for me this year, at least from a mental standpoint,” Shaheen said. “And knowing what I needed to do physically this offseason and doing what I had to do, and then coming out here, even with the new offense it just feels a lot slower.”
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Shaheen said he weighs 270 pounds (he came to the Bears at 278) but is leaner, the product of a full year in the Bears’ strength and conditioning program. He and Mitch Trubisky showed a decent rapport last year, and can build on that this year — so long as Shaheen is able to cut into Sims’ playing time (Trey Burton and Brown are both “U” tight ends, a position Shaheen says he’s learning but isn’t a focus for him).
“I feel like (tight end’s) one of our strengths as an offense with that experience and just that athleticism and what they can do creating mismatch opportunities for the defense, so we've just gotta continue to utilize them,” Trubisky said. “But at the end of the day, it comes down to execution and just us learning our offense and giving our playmakers the best opportunity to go against them. I believe we've got our playmakers than the defense has guys to account for them, so we've just gotta utilize those guys and get them the ball and believe in the plan and execute the plays.”
Shaheen isn’t guaranteed playing time just because he’s on more solid footing after his first year in the league, though. The Bears still need to see him earn those snaps in the coming weeks and months.
“You gotta control what you can control, and for me that’s my effort,” Shaheen said. “The extra stuff I do, that’s what you can control. You can’t control anything else. That’s what I’m going to do.”