Jesper Horsted's story basically writes itself. An ivy league graduate! Named Jesper!
Horsted's actually played well, though, and he's made a name for himself in The Great Undrafted Tight End battle of 2019. He finished the preseason with eight catches for 121 yards with two touchdowns, both of which were great catches:
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So who is Jesper Horsted?!
Where did Jesper Horsted come from?
Good question! The Minnesota native (who once had 19 catches for 293 yards in a high school playoff game) played at Princeton, where he was actually a wide receiver. He set Princeton career records for receptions (196) and touchdown catches (28). Per his biography on the Bears' website, Horsted was also the 11th player in program history to earn an invitation to the East-West Shrine Game, one of college football's premier showcases. He was also on the first undefeated Princeton team in since 1964 and won two Ivy League titles in three years. He's a big deal at Princeton, basically.
NFL
But he's a tight end now?
He sure is. Listed at 6-foot-4 and 215 pounds, Horsted came on with the Bears with the understanding that he'd move to tight end. He spoke about the adjustment after Thursday night's preseason finale.
“It’s been good," he said. "There have been a lot of ups and downs. Like, the passing part of the tight end stuff comes pretty natural to me with my wide receiver background. Thankfully we have a lot of really good mentors on our team that have been super helpful and have made it easier.”
Horsted also admitted that he needed to work on his blocking, although he was pleased with sealing a block on a longer Josh Caldwell run.
Is he going to make the team?
This is when the NFL becomes a huge bummer. Horsted had the best preseason of any tight end that played in games, and it still doesn't feel very likely that he'll make the team. For all the talk of the Bears' tight end depth issues, the Burton-Shaheen-Braunecker-Sowell pecking order sorted itself out pretty quickly. There's always a chance that Horsted could be a practice squad guy, especially with the uneven performances from fellow undrafted TEs Dax Raymond, Ellis Richardson and Ian Bunting. After Friday's loss, Nagy wouldn't hint one way or the other.
"What Ryan [Pace] and I will have to go back and decide, okay, what direction do we want to go,” he said. “Do we see somebody that has a high ceiling? Do we see somebody that we think we can work with more or not? And if we do, then we'll try to develop -- we want to try to develop these players and create our own stars.”
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