Fantasy fallout: Allen Robinson expected to sign with the Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears seem primied to land themselves a number one receiver, reportedly agreeing to terms with free agent Allen Robinson:

This is a huge get for Chicago who clearly lacked a number one receiver last year, losing Alshon Jeffery to free agency and Cameron Meredith to a torn ACL (more on that later). Now, the Bears have a legit upper echelon receiver for Mitchell Trubisky to play with and to help him reach his full potential.

So, who’s fantasy value is benefiting from this signing? Answer: pretty much everyone.

Allen Robinson

Before we dive into it, let me first say that Robinson, like Meredith, is also coming off a torn ACL so the jury is out to see if he’ll be the same receiver after the injury. But I’m choosing to trust the miracle of modern medicine here.

Robinson is your prototypical number one receiver: six-foot-three, 200 pounds, can high point the ball and win one-on-ones. He goes from catching balls from Blake Bortles to catch balls from Trubitsky. I’ll let you figure out if that’s an upgrade or not. (Personally, I think it’s the tiniest bit of an upgrade). At the very least, you know Chicago is going to be getting Robinson the ball.

Mitchell Trubitsky

If you want to employ the “don’t draft a QB” strategy, then Mitch might be a good guy to snag off the waiver wire. He’ll be entering his second year, with an offensive minded head coach with now more weapons surrounding him, including possibly two top receivers (Robinson and Meredith).

Jordan Howard

This is big news for Howard fans. It might take a couple of games, but hopefully teams won’t be able to stack the box to stop Howard, since that would leave Robinson in one-on-one coverage. Forcing teams to pick their poison is exactly what the Bears want and hopefully a talented back like Howard will be able to take advantage.

Cameron Meredith

Meredith flashed potential in 2016, catching 66 balls for 888 yards and four touchdowns and obviously his value is hurt a little with the Robinson signing. However, in today’s NFL offense, it’s easy to have two successful fantasy receivers so this might even end up helping Meredith’s value as defenses attention will be paid elsewhere.

The rare win-win-win.