Dax Raymond is fighting for a roster spot with the Chicago Bears. The Utah State tight end was viewed as one of the top undrafted free agents after the draft concluded this year and he quickly landed in Chicago. He is someone with a lot of upside who fits a need on Chicago’s roster. Many have been crediting the Bears for being able to sign him this offseason and one of those people is Senior Bowl Executive Director Jim Nagy.
“During Senior Bowl selection process we reached out to numerous NFL teams and most projected Raymond in Rounds 3-4,” Nagy tweeted. “Age and medical red flags cause him to slide but we’d be very surprised if Dax didn’t make Chicago Bears 53-man roster.”
Nagy’s stance on Raymond should not be glossed over. He spent 18 years in the NFL in a variety of different scouting roles. He was also a part of six teams that went to the Super Bowl and his teams won the Super Bowl four times (Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks).
In Raymond the Bears are getting a tight end with a lot of upside. As a freshman at Utah State in 2015 he recorded four catches for 72 yards before missing the entire 2016 season with a back injury. He rebounded in 2017 to catch 41 passes for 456 yards with one receiving touchdown. He capped off his final season with 27 catches for 345 yards with two touchdowns.
The Bears got their first look at him at rookie minicamp in early May and were impressed with what he was able to do. Head coach Matt Nagy had a lot of good things to say about the young tight end’s ability to catch the football.
“He made a nice catch in the back of the end zone,” the Bears coach said after a minicamp practice. “He has big hands. Usually when you have big hands you catch a lot of footballs and he did that. He’s shown that on tape. He has a really good skill set. I am happy with what he did this week.”
Earning a spot on Chicago’s roster at the position is not totally out of the question for Raymond. The team currently has Trey Burton and Adam Shaheen locked into roster spots with Raymond set to compete with veteran Ben Braunecker and fellow undrafted rookies Ian Bunting from California, Ellis Richardson from Georgia Southern and Jesper Horsted from Princeton.