Here's a fun tweet:
Ten tight ends! The Bears have 10 tight ends on their roster. It's a funny, albeit embarrassing, situation they find themselves in considering the lack of production at the position in 2019.
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Obviously it's not really a 10-man race, and the Bears' tight end picture – at least at the top – already looks pretty clear. Assuming they hold onto Trey Burton, there's your main, if not starting, two.
The traditional Y could be Demetrius Harris, which means trouble for Adam Shaheen. Adding Graham crowds the room, but it was bringing in Harris – whose time in Kansas City almost, in a backwards way, makes him more of a Matt Nagy Guy than Shaheen, who was drafted by John Fox. If the Bears are looking for a way to free up some cap space, saving $1.2 million by cutting Shaheen before June 1 looks awfully tempting now.
Since being drafted in 2017, Shaheen's only appeared 27 times, roughly 55% of possible games played. Over that time, he's caught 26 balls for 249 yards and four touchdowns. Graham, the Bears' new tight end, is coming off one of the least productive seasons in his decade-long career, and his numbers (38 catches, 447 yards, three TDs) were still better.
As you can see in the tweet, there's plenty of tight end depth for Ryan Pace and Nagy to choose from that doesn't come with Shaheen's $1.8 million cap hit in 2020. The Bears could keep Ben Braunecker for far less ($150k), or choose between JP Holtz and Jesper Horsted (the latter admittedly not a Y), both at $675k.
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Last year the Holtz/Horsted/Braunecker combo showed that while it wouldn't get much worse, it wasn't going to get a whole lot better, either. Shaheen's proven to be neither reliable or productive, and the Bears choosing to move on from him feels incresingly likely.