The Bears were done with tight end Adam Shaheen a while ago. Now they’re making it official.
The team is trading Shaheen to the Dolphins for a conditional sixth-round pick, a source said Saturday. It ends his exasperating run with the Bears after they drafted him in the second round in 2017.
Shaheen’s best season was as a rookie, when he 12 passes for 127 yards and three touchdowns in 13 games. Over the 2018 and ‘19 seasons, he totaled 14 catches over 14 games.
The Bears essentially shut him down last season after their Week 9 game against the Eagles.
That the team got anything in return for Shaheen is a surprise. He appeared to have little chance of making the roster this season and was set to cost the Bears $1.9 million salary-cap space.
He’ll go down as one of the worst draft picks of general manager Ryan Pace’s career. He chose Shaheen 45th overall — it was the same year he traded up to take Mitch Trubisky at No. 2 — and he never proved to be an NFL-caliber player. When he wasn’t injured, he was ineffective.
“When he’s played, we’ve liked what we have seen,” Pace said of Shaheen at the end of last season. “He just hasn’t put it out there long enough.”
Pace started trying to correct that draft miss almost immediately by signing free agent tight end Trey Burton to a four-year, $32 million deal a year later. After the team cut Burton this offseason with a dead cap hit of $7.5 million, Pace drafted Notre Dame tight end Cole Kmet with his first pick of the draft at No. 43 overall.
