As Jeffery flies with Eagles, Bears soar too

The last time Alshon Jeffery saw the Bears defense, he celebrated a touchdown catch by rolling an imaginary bowling ball that knocked over 10 teammates. The Eagles laughed their way through a rollicking 31-3 rout in Philadelphia just more than 13 months ago. The last time Jeffery played at Soldier Field, on Christmas Eve 2016, fewer than 10,000 fans remained in the stands by the end of the Bears’ 41-21 loss to the Redskins, Jeffery’s last home game in the city where he worked but says he never loved.

Jeffery will recognize neither the Bears defense nor his old workplace Sunday when the Eagles arrive for an NFC wild -card playoff game. The defense has a sharper edge, Khalil Mack and more reasons to be feared than mocked. And these days Eddie Jackson, the safety who blew the coverage on Jeffery’s 8-yard touchdown catch Nov. 26, 2017, leads a secondary that includes two first-team AllPros and is the NFL’s most opportunistic.

As for that dormant stadium on the lakefront Jeffery might recall from losing 24 of 40 home games during his Bears tenure from 2012 to 2016, it received a makeover worthy of HGTV. Air-raid sirens whip fans into a frenzy before opponents’ offensive plays. Towels wave feverishly in every section. Grabowskis stand and scream. Rumor is that Sunday thousands will yell “BOOM!” at the same time, just as coach Matt Nagy urged.

This is not the Chicago that Jeffery was in such a hurry to leave. Oh, and the playing surface he ripped for its shoddy condition seldom has looked healthier at this stage of winter, suggesting the grass really is greener since Jeffery left.

“I don’t have any emotions,” Jeffery told reporters this week. “It’s a football game and they’re just in the way of where we want to go. We believe in each other. We’re confident with everybody in the locker room. We don’t care who we face.” The Eagles don’t care who they face? Jeffery can feign indifference with the best of football divas, but surely he respects the NFL’s stingiest defense more than his words imply. Surely Jeffery meant to express confidence without reducing the Bears defense to just another 11 tacklers on the video screen chasing the ball.

Jeffery’s return to face the Bears creates a compelling contrast, a Pro Bowl-caliber player who left town because he wanted to be elsewhere opposing a team that jelled quickly because of guys who love everything about the organization. General manager Ryan Pace, perhaps learning from experience during his first three seasons in charge, has replenished the roster with players who consider being part of the Bears a privilege instead of a sentence. A happy locker room often becomes a winning one, and vice versa.

For whatever reason, after Jeffery’s breakout 1,421-yard season in 2013, he never appeared comfortable embracing all that came with his local celebrity. Over five seasons, Jeffery caught 304 passes for 4,549 yards and 26 touchdowns — only Harlon Hill and Johnny Morris have more receiving yards in franchise history — but the Bears struggled with a 32-48 record in that span.

Assorted injuries and a four-game PED suspension marred Jeffery’s last couple of seasons with the Bears. Despite all of his ability, availability became a problem that limited his production. The constant losing and persistent dysfunction made Jeffery harder to reach — and to read. More than one member of the organization noted how the receiver with the wide catch radius had such a small circle of friends. Word spread around Halas Hall that the son of the South disliked Chicago’s cold weather, disenchantment that made Jeffery’s exit seem inevitable.

Still, the Bears applied the $14.9 million franchise tag for 2016 and tried to bring Jeffery back in 2017 with a long-term contract but never found common ground, a gap harder to bridge given his desire for a change of scenery. Signing a one-year, $14 million free-agent deal with the Eagles rather than settle for the security of a longer deal demonstrated how deep Jeffery’s desires were.

With the Eagles, Jeffery won a Super Bowl ring after playing through a torn rotator cuff and showing toughness not always evident with the Bears. It earned him a four-year, $52 million extension with $27 million guaranteed. This season, he caught 65 passes for 843 yards and six touchdowns as the Eagles’ top deep threat.

The Bears, meanwhile, moved on from a player as enigmatic as he was explosive. Their mistake in 2017 wasn’t in letting Jeffery go but in not replacing him. The absence of a legitimate No. 1 receiver stunted the growth of quarterback Mitch Trubisky as a rookie. Everything finally changed last offseason when Pace signed Allen Robinson, a driven pro who wanted the Bears as badly as the Bears wanted him. The same was true with receiver Taylor Gabriel and tight end Trey Burton.

In the end, everything worked out for both sides. Jeffery can walk out of a different tunnel Sunday onto a familiar field believing he is better off — and the Bears can say the same thing.