The last time the Bears had a truly dominant wide receiver was in 2013 when Alshon Jeffery caught 89 passes for 1,421 yards and seven touchdowns. A year earlier, Brandon Marshall dominated the NFL with 118 catches, 1,508 yards and 11 scores. While Jeffery and Marshall's production will be hard to match in 2018, free-agent prize Allen Robinson is expected to be a game-changer on offense who will provide a similar kind of threat in the passing game.
Robinson brings an impressive resume to the Bears. He was one of the league's best young receivers in 2015 when he had 1,400 yards and 14 touchdowns on 80 catches. His 14 scores tied for best in the league that year.
But with that one dominant season comes a head-scratching 2016. While most of the blame rightfully belongs to Blake Bortles' wild inaccuracy that season, Robinson managed only 883 yards on seven fewer catches than the year before. The big plays were gone. He scored only six touchdowns.
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Last season was a complete loss after he tore his ACL in Week 1.
The Bears signed Robinson for the damage he did to NFL secondaries in 2015. And while it's unlikely he reaches those heights in his first year back from injury, he should provide enough production to justify the faith GM Ryan Pace placed in his surgically repaired knee.
Robinson's value in fantasy football circles is all over the map. ESPN's Mike Clay predicted Robinson would end the year with 73 catches for 1,053 yards and seven touchdowns. Rotoworld's Evan Silva ranked Robinson 22nd among receivers, a value that translates to a WR2 for fantasy play.
So what will Robinson's stat line be like in 2018?
NFL
It's worth looking at the production receivers in Kansas City had while Matt Nagy was on the staff to get an idea of what his upside could be this year.
Tyreek Hill was the top wideout for the Chiefs last season. He was targeted 105 times and had 75 catches for 1,183 yards and seven scores. He's a different kind of player than Robinson and is more indicative of the potential for Taylor Gabriel.
In 2015, Jeremy Maclin had 87 catches (124 targets) for 1,088 yards and eight touchdowns. No other receivers produced noteworthy numbers during Nagy's tenure with the Chiefs. In fact, it was tight end Travis Kelce who was the primary weapon on offense.
With all due respect to Trey Burton, that won't be the case in 2018.
Robinson will get the lion's share of targets. How many that end's up being is the biggest question surrounding Robinson's value. There are a lot of talented options for Trubisky to choose from this season, including Burton, Gabriel, Anthony Miller and, quite possibly, Kevin White. Add Tarik Cohen out of the backfield, and the onus is on Robinson to make the most out of his looks.
Robinson had 151 targets in both 2015 and 2016, a volume that would've ranked sixth in the NFL last season and ahead of superstars like Julio Jones (Falcons) and A.J. Green (Bengals). Kendall Wright led the Bears in targets last year with only 91.
With somewhere around 125 targets likely coming Robinson's way and an estimated catch rate of roughly 60 percent in 2018, a season of 75 catches, 1,125 yards and 10 touchdowns is very much within his reach. HIs stats would resemble the No. 1 wideout from the Chiefs' system over the last several seasons and would give the Bears the kind of playmaker they've missed for several seasons.
Anything less than that kind of production would qualify as a disappointment for Pace's biggest offseason addition.