The Bears are terrible. Odds are, if you are reading this, the Bears have been bad for most of your lifetime. With only brief respites of competency, any true Bears fan can point to a personal Mt. Rushmore of their least favorite member of this franchise. Alonzo Spellman. Todd Sauerbraun. Adam Shaheen. Shea McClellin. And that isn’t even to mention the absolute school bus fire that is the Bears quarterbacks. Moses Moreno, Steve Stenstrom, and David Fales come to mind, along with dozens of others.
But what about the wide receiver position? You know, the spot on your fantasy roster that ruins your season every year? Well, it also seems to have ruined the Bears every season for as long as anyone can remember. The Bears are bad at drafting receivers. How bad? On Thursday night, Minnesota Vikings receiver Justin Jefferson was plastered all over social media for having surpassed any Chicago Bear for most career receiving yards. Are there a lot of receivers that fall into this category? Of course. What makes it remarkable is that Jefferson did it in the 2nd game of his fourth NFL season. He has played in 52 career games. The Bears, as a franchise, have played 1452 NFL games since 1922. The NFL existed for 77 years, the Bears participating in every one of which, before Justin Jefferson was born.
This got me thinking. Who is the best Bears Wide Receiver, THAT THEY DRAFTED, in our lifetime. And by our lifetime, I mean geriatric millennial or younger. Only people that have no memory of the Bears 1985 Super Bowl season are included in this. Oh, you were one year old when the Bears won? Piss off. You don’t remember that. You remember Rashaan Salaam. That’s your punishment for rooting for this WeWork IPO of a franchise.
To get a full grasp of just how absolutely terrible the Bears franchise is at drafting the position, let’s look at every player drafted since 1990. Whether the player is any good is arbitrary based on how I look at stats. Then again, as you will see, the Bears draft strategy could also be called, at best, arbitrary. I also looked at other players that could have been drafted after the player listed was drafted who would have been a better option. I’m sticking exclusively with other Wide Receivers because, as much fun as it would be to point out every Bears draft botch, I don’t want to be here forever.
| Player | Year | Round | Any Good? | Other Draftable Options |
| Tony Moss | 1990 | 4 | Doesn’t even have a Pro Football Reference page | Chris Calloway, Terance Mathis |
| Anthony Morgan | 1991 | 5 | 27 receptions in 2.5 years. So, no | Keenan McCardell |
| John Brown | 1992 | 7 | Also doesn’t have a Pro Football Reference page | None |
| Curtis Conway | 1993 | 1 | Contender for best drafted receiver in team history..oh god | Troy Brown, maybe? |
| Lloyd Hill | 1994 | 6 | ALSO doesn’t have a Pro Football Reference page | Bill Schroeder |
| Jack Jackson | 1995 | 4 | 4 career receptions, which puts him in the top half so far | None |
| Bobby Engram | 1996 | 2 | Scrappy slot receiver. In contention. | Terrell Owens, Joe Horn |
| Marcus Robinson | 1997 | 4 | Had one good season. Possible contender by default | None |
| D’Wayne Bates | 1999 | 3 | More notable for botched contract with team | Brandon Stokely |
| Marty Booker | 1999 | 3 | Sentimental pick as one of the best picks | Donald Driver |
| Sulecio Sanford | 1999 | 7 | Sounds like Armenian porn star. No PFR page | None |
| Dez White | 2000 | 3 | Perfectly below average pick | Laveranues Coles |
| Frank Murphy | 2000 | 6 | You cannot make me believe this guy is real | None |
| David Terrell | 2001 | 1 | David and his Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Hands | Reggie Wayne, Chad Johnson, Steve Smith |
| John Capel | 2001 | 7 | At this point, you already know he doesn’t have a PFR page | None |
| Jamin Elliott | 2002 | 6 | 3 NFL games. No receptions. 1 Tackle. In this group, not bad | Ronald Curry, David Givens |
| Bobby Wade | 2003 | 5 | 244 career receptions! But only 64 as a Bear | Kevin Walter |
| Justin Gage | 2003 | 5 | 201 career receptions! But only 64 as a Bear | Still Kevin Walter |
| Bernard Berrian | 2004 | 3 | Had 71 receptions in 2007. Then promptly left in free agency | Jerricho Cotchery |
| Mark Bradley | 2005 | 2 | Core special teams player, but only 92 career receptions | Vincent Jackson |
| Airese Currie | 2005 | 5 | Played in one game. Ever | None |
| Earl Bennett | 2008 | 3 | Beloved player, because we adore mediocrity | Harry Douglass, Pierre Garcon |
| Marcus Monk | 2008 | 7 | Has a Pro Football Reference page, but it’s blank | None |
| Juaquin Iglesias | 2009 | 3 | One career game as a third round pick! | Brian Hartline |
| Johnny Knox | 2009 | 5 | Taught us all what mortality on the football field looks like | Julian Edelman |
| Derek Kinder | 2009 | 7 | It would be kinder not to reference his lack of stats | None |
| Alshon Jeffery | 2012 | 2 | It’s basically just him and Conway, isn’t it? | TY Hilton, Marvin Jones |
| Marquess Wilson | 2013 | 7 | I’m about half sure he is still on their practice squad | None |
| Kevin White | 2015 | 1 | And here it is, the Cade McNown of Bears receiver busts | Anybody. Literally anybody |
| Daniel Braverman | 2016 | 7 | Real Person. Thats all I’ve got | None |
| Anthony Miller | 2018 | 2 | 140 career receptions, which has him basically top 10 | DJ Chark, Michael Gallup |
| Javon Wims | 2018 | 7 | Sucked so hard, they are still throwing penalty flags on him | Richie James |
| Riley Ridley | 2019 | 4 | Not his brother. Didn’t even have to gamble to be out of NFL | Hunter Renfrow |
| Darnell Mooney | 2020 | 5 | He is probably already top five | None |
| Daz Newsome | 2021 | 6 | Going to be a practice squad hero forever | Ben Skowronek |
| Velus Jones | 2022 | 3 | This was a stupid, stupid, stupid draft pick | Romo Doubs |
This is bleak. Like, Manchester By The Sea bleak. Over the past three + decades, the team has only invested three 1st round picks into the position.
Before we dig in more, here are some facts. The Bears used a first round pick on a wide receiver 2 times. They didn’t draft a WR at all 7 times.
More receivers with no Pro Football Reference Page than receivers with 250 career receptions.
The Bears have drafted more WR’s with fewer than 5 career games than QB’s with fewer than 5 career games.
Kevin White had 19 receptions as a rookie. Somehow existing in 5 more seasons he has accumulated 9 more receptions.
Airese Currie is a real person. He played in the CFL for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Bobby Engram had 47 receptions in 2008 for the Seahawks in his 13th year in the league.
Velus Jones had more fumbles as a rookie than Curtis Conway had in any 3 year strectch in his career
Ok, enough with the fun. Let’s break down the dreary nothingness that is finding the best Bears receiver.
The best receiver of our lifetime is Greg Olsen. He ended up with 742 career receptions. He was traded because Mike Martz didn’t value tight ends.
We do need to set some (admittedly weak) standards. So we will land at this. 4 seasons as a Bear. 200 career receptions. 100 receiving yards as a Bear. Am I asking for too much? As it turns out, yes!
Here is the problem. Every receiver is soooooo soooooooooo soooooooooooo bad. So i’m not going to isolate stats. It will be career stats over an entire career because the Bears are so depressing, they are not worth a further search query.
| Player | Seasons overall | Receptions | Yards | Touchdowns |
| Bobby Engram | 14 | 650 | 7751 | 35 |
| Curtis Conway | 12 | 594 | 8230 | 52 |
| Marty Booker | 11 | 539 | 6703 | 37 |
| Alshon Jeffery | 9 | 475 | 6786 | 46 |
| Marcus Robinson | 9 | 325 | 4699 | 43 |
| Bernard Berrian | 8 | 288 | 4122 | 24 |
| Bobby Wade | 7 | 244 | 2858 | 9 |
| Justin Gage | 8 | 201 | 2958 | 16 |
| Dez White | 6 | 187 | 2149 | 11 |
So for the record, this is a terrible list. Did any of you fans who have been following this team think you were going to see this absolute perverted whacking session as anything more than a depressing reminder of a life that can’t possibly exist, except it does because the Bears can AND will suck forever.
We can do a lot of math, but let’s make it easy. Curtis Conway had 500 more receiving yards and 17 more touchdowns in two fewer seasons than Bobby Engram. Nobody else really adds up.
I’m going to take a long pull from a bottle of bourbon as I type this. Curtis Conway is the best wide receiver that the Bears have drafted since 1990. He had fewer receptions over his career than Bobby Engram. But he had more yards and touchdowns, and did it in two fewer seasons. Conway had 12 touchdown receptions in 1995, which feels like a team record, even though I haven’t looked it up.. While Conway only had two 1000 receiving yard seasons as a Bear, he had multiple good seasons as a Charger.
Nobody else really matches up. In my memories, I love Marty Booker. I remember his insane catch against the Lions. How epic was the catch?
Very epic.
That said, no Bears receiver ever created the stat lines that Curtis Conway had….
You know what. I can’t do this.
Conway had success elsewhere.
Marty Booker is the best wide receiver to be drafted by the Bears over the past 32 years.
Booker spent his entire career as a Bear being thrown to by scrap heap pickups at quarterback. The best running back he ever played with was Raymont Harris (no disrespect to the Ultra Back). You remember the offensive line as a joking side piece rather than an effective front. Most of Booker’s stats were accumulated behind an offensive line that couldn’t defend a spirited 9 year old playing Bozo buckets.
Booker being the best wide receiver isn’t so much an indictment on Booker than a massive black mark against the Chicago Football Team. The godfathers of the black and blue division might hate the forward pass for than Virginia McCaskey hates remembering her role in the Civil War. But, their insistence on “3 yards and cloud of dust” has helped ruined them for decades. They deserve no credit for anything they do. They hire the coaches and general mangers. They are the final arbiters of who should be drafted. And they have failed constantly and consistently. I’m focusing on the wide receivers, but I can assure you that multiple positions could fall the same way.
In the end, though, at least a heartfelt champion won. Marty Booker was a fun receiver who made a lot out of very little.
Now, maybe if they had a decent quarterback…
Fancy Boys Club 