Bear Digest

Bears Give Third-Round Pick Velus Jones Jr. the Boot

After his opening-week muffed kickoff, Velus Jones Jr. has been inactive and the other shoe fell on Friday as the Bears waived their 2022 third-round pick.

Gene Chamberlain

Velus Jones Jr. was among the league's top kick returners in 2022 and 2023 but hanging onto the ball was an issue.
Velus Jones Jr. was among the league's top kick returners in 2022 and 2023 but hanging onto the ball was an issue. / Denny Medley-Imagn Images
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It shouldn't have been a shock because of his inactivity, but it was as a result of his draft pedigree.

The Bears on Friday placed 2022 third-round draft pick Velus Jones Jr. on waivers.

At the same time, they also waived fullback Khari Blasingame.

Jones' release goes down as a total failure by GM Ryan Poles in his first draft. The team needed a receiver to help Justin Fields at the time in the draft and with no first-rounder, they picked cornerback Kyler Gordon and safety Jaquan Brisker and let the receiver position go until Round 3, then took the best available and the player they deemed such was Jones.

Jones' made no impact as a receiver and was a respectable kick returner but muffed the ball twice on punt returns and lost that job before his rookie season ended. The muffs against Washington and the Giants paved the way for two defeats.

This year, Jones seemed ideal for the new kick return rules and muffed the kickoff in the opener, then kicked the ball himself as he tried to reach down and recover it on the run. It went to the Titans, and after that game Jones never played again for the Bears.

Following the mistake in the Bears' season-opening win, special teams coordinator Richard Hightower was emotional on Thursday when talking about what occurred. As he said, he wasn't going to sugar-coat it.

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"Well the great thing is I'm not very good at sugar-coating. I don't sugar-coat anything," he said. "In fact, I just talked to the kid five minutes before I walked in here because we just happened to cross paths. But in regards to what happened in the game, it's unacceptable. We all know that. We value the ball and on that particular play we didn't and it hurt the football team."

Jones had always seemed a favorite of Hightower and even the coaching staff because of a positive attitude and great physical abilities.

"Yeah, I mean, like honestly, as a human being, as a human, I hurt for the kid, I really do," Hightower said. "But as a coach we have to evaluate all of our options. And he knows in the return game No. 1 thing is to take care of the football."

Jones had a 26.7-yard average for 39 kick returns over three seasons.

Poles apparently received some inquiries about Jones prior to the end of training camp and in the final episode of Hard Knocks said he couldn't think of giving up on Jones for less than a fourth-round pick.

"I'm just trying to draw the line and say what I would do," Poles told Matt Eberflus in the show. "Like, I would never go below a 4. The value, does it make sense on paper? That's unbelievable value."

During training camp, they tried to give him a different role as a Cordarrelle Patterson type of running back/receiver who returns, as well. He seemed to take to this role and had a team-high 158 yards on 25 carries with two TDs as a runner in preseason, as well as 11 yards on two catches.

The experiment was a major theme in the HBO Hard Knocks Series featuring the Bears, and it appeared at the end of camp all was well for Jones. Then came the opener.

Jones had two runs for 11 yards in the opener, besides catching an 8-yard pass, but the special teams snafu ended this experiment. Jones was inactive for Weeks 2-6.

He finished his Bears career with 19 rushing attempts for 165 yards and an 8.7-yard average, and with 12 catches in 22 targets for 135 yards (11.3 yards a catch). He had one TD receiving and one rushing.

Without Jones, the Bears still have Tyler Scott and DeAndre Coleman as backup wide receivers behind the first three. This fuels speculation they might make some type of trade or roster move for a sixth, but they do have three wide receivers on the practice squad: Samori Toure, the former Packers receiver; Collin Johnson and John Jackson.

Blasingame's departure was speculated upon since the offseason because offensive coordinator Shane Waldron never used a fullback in his Seattle offense.

Blasingame had been injured but has been healthy since a few weeks into the season and was inactive each week while they used backup center Doug Kramer as the lead blocker in short-yardage situations.

Twitter: BearsOnSI

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Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

BearDigest.com publisher Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.