CHICAGO — The Chicago Bears made their biggest splash in free agency Thursday night, agreeing to send a fourth-round pick to the Los Angeles Chargers in exchange for wide receiver Keenan Allen, sources confirmed to ESPN.
Allen, 31, is entering the final year of the four-year contract extension he signed in 2020 and is due a $5 million roster bonus on Sunday. After declining to take a pay cut from the Chargers, he has a new home in a Bears offense opposite wideout DJ Moore.
Allen, a six-time Pro Bowl selection, will reunite with wide receivers coach Chris Beatty, who coached the same position with the Chargers from 2021-23. Allen caught a career-high 108 passes last season and posted the second-best receiving output of his 11-year career with 1,243 yards and seven touchdowns. It marked the sixth time in Allen’s career that he crossed 1,000 receiving yards.
Chicago has four picks remaining in the draft (Nos. 1, 9, 75 and 122 via Philadelphia) after sending one of two fourth-round picks to the Chargers on Thursday. The Bears are reportedly sending their own fourth-round selection (No. 110) to the Chargers in exchange for Allen.
Last month at the NFL combine, Bears coach Matt Eberflus noted the priority of adding more pieces to Chicago’s wide receiver room. Former Bears wide receiver Darnell Mooney signed a three-year contract with the Atlanta Falcons in free agency, leaving Moore, Velus Jones Jr., Tyler Scott and Nsimba Webster as the only receivers on the Bears’ roster. Webster has spent the majority of his career in Chicago on the practice squad.
“We don’t have a lot of depth there first of all,” Eberflus said in February. “That’s the first part. Adding some dynamic pieces there through free agency or through the draft potentially, so to me when you’re trying to defend that, when you have a weapon at tight end and you have a weapon at the X receiver like DJ. When you add a piece or two to the other side, it really balances you out. It’s hard to defend for sure.”
The addition of Allen gives Chicago another bona-fide star at wide receiver. He is coming off his fifth season with 100 receptions, which is tied for the third-most in NFL history, trailing only Antonio Brown and Brandon Marshall. Allen also holds the record for most games with 15 receptions (three times) and ranks fourth all-time for most games with 10 receptions. He had four games with 10 receptions last season, tied for the second-most in the NFL.
Allen is the third skill player the Bears have added on offense this week along with fellow former Chargers tight end Gerald Everett, who agreed to a two-year contract, and running back D’Andre Swift, who signed his three-year, $24 million contract with the Bears on Thursday.
Allen was among four Chargers players who entered the offseason with cap hits upwards of $30 million next season, along with outside linebackers Khalil Mack and Joey Bosa and wide receiver Mike Williams, whom the team released Wednesday, saving $20 million this year. The players represented four of the five highest non-quarterback cap hits in the NFL.
Allen’s departure always seemed unlikely, though. He was the longest-tenured player on the Chargers, drafted by the team in the third round in the 2013 draft. He has the franchise record for yards and receptions by a receiver. Most important, Allen had perhaps the best season of his career in 2023. Despite missing the season’s final four games with a heel injury, he set the Chargers’ single-season record for receptions and was the team’s most reliable weapon in a receiving corps that was inconsistent throughout the season.
In January, Allen was the most vocal among the Chargers’ stars about wanting to stay in Los Angeles. Mack said he understood that it was a business, Bosa never spoke about his future and Williams said he wanted to return, but not as emphatically as Allen.
“I don’t want to go nowhere else,” Allen said then. “I’ve been here 10 years, like you said, the longest guy on the team, so I’m not looking forward to anything else.”
Allen went on to say he would only play for a select few teams if he were traded — otherwise, he would retire.
“If It did come down to that, adios, amigos,” Allen said then with a smile. “I’ll get picked up in the offseason or right before the playoffs like them old heads are doing.”
But the general manager who drafted Allen, Tom Telesco, is gone, and new general manager Joe Hortiz and head coach Jim Harbaugh don’t have the same ties to Allen.
With Allen’s departure, Joshua Palmer and Quentin Johnston are the Chargers’ top receivers. L.A. has the No. 5 pick in the 2023 draft, and in a loaded class at receiver, it seems likely that they will now look for that position.
News of Allen’s trade to Chicago was first reported by Fox Sports.
ESPN’s Kris Rhim contributed to this report.
