Chester Taylor Will Be Cut By the Bears…Or Will He?

Chester Taylor is a one-and-done with the Bears. Chicago will reportedly cut the former Viking running back a year after signing him to a 4-year, $12.5 million contract. The Bears have already paid him $7 million of that contract.

Taylor left the Vikings for the Bears in hopes of getting more touches, thinking Mike Martz‘s offense would suit his combination of running and receiving skills.  In the end, Taylor did get more carries than in either of his last two seasons in purple, but caught only 20 passes after averaging 40-a-year over his four years in Minnesota. Taylor averaged only 2.4 yards-per-carry with the Bears, way down from his Viking years.

The thought with Taylor when he joined the Bears was that, because he had spent the last few seasons backing up Adrian Peterson, he had relatively fresh legs despite his age. That theory kind of blew up in 2010 however, and the Bears finally decided he wasn’t worth keeping around.

So do the Vikings look at bringing Taylor back in 2011 as a back-up running back/3rd-down specialist? I can’t see a good reason why. They already have Toby Gerhart and Lorenzo Booker, both of whom are much younger. It looks like the Vikings caught a break by not re-signing Taylor last off-season.

Update: Now it looks like the Bears are willing to give it another shot with Taylor in 2011. This just tweeted by @ESPNChiBears: “Chester Taylor’s agent told me, he’s staying — Would make sense since Taylor only making 1.25 million next year.”

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