Has any good receiver been more cursed with bad quarterbacks than Allen Robinson?

Chicago Bears receiver Allen Robinson has become a great NFL player despite quarterback luck that borders on the tragic.

Some receivers are able to make the most of great quarterback situations. Jerry Rice is the obvious greatest receiver of all time, but you think it helped his case that he was able to transition from Joe Montana to Steve Young at his peak? Outside of having to learn to catch a ball that’s thrown left-handed with Young (which is actually a legitimate thing that takes getting used to), that’s not a bad switch in starters over a period of time from 1985 through 1998.

Inversely, there are receivers who are never seen at their ultimate potential because the quarterbacks they’re given are just not good enough to maximize their attributes. That’s a nice way of saying that if your quarterbacks are foofoo-caca, it doesn’t matter how good you are as a receiver — you’re going to struggle.

Allen Robinson, who currently plays for the Chicago Bears and used to play for Penn State and the Jacksonville Jaguars, can relate. During Robinson’s three years with the Nittany Lions from 2011 through 2013, his primary quarterbacks were Matt McGloin, who completed 58.1% of his passes and threw 11 touchdowns to 11 interceptions in four seasons with the Raiders… and Christian Hackenberg, who was so inept, he never played a snap of regular-season NFL football despite the fact that the Jets selected him with the 51st overall pick in the 2016 draft. Hackenburg was last seen washing out of the AAF after a profanity-laced outburst, and trying to become a major-league pitcher.

Despite all that, Robinson managed to catch 177 passes for 2,479 yards and 17 touchdowns in his collegiate career, which led the Jaguars to select him with the 61st overall pick in the 2014 draft. To accelerate his NFL transition, the Jaguars gave him two primary quarterbacks from 2017 through 2017 — Blake Bortles and Chad Henne. Yeah, the hits just keep on coming. Bortles actually managed to make the Pro Bowl in 2015 with 35 touchdown passes (Robinson led the league with 14 touchdown catches that season), but that didn’t last on Bortles’ part. Henne completed 57.6% of his passes over five seasons with the Jags, with 27 touchdowns and 26 interceptions.

Finally a free agent in 2018, Allen decided to sign a three-year, $42 million contract with the Chicago Bears, picking that team over the Packers.

“With all things being equal, Chicago was a place I had my eyes on from a football standpoint,” Robinson told First Coast News back then.

“It’s a spot with a lot of benefits as far as it being close to home. The close-to-home thing was a very minimal factor but it was still a factor.

“For me, going into the whole free agency process, Chicago was definitely a team I had my eye on, from the standpoint that they had just hired Coach [Matt] Nagy. Coach Nagy was a big part of it… I’m a big fan of his system and his offense.”

Sadly, Nagy’s system and his offense also came with quarterback Mitchell Trubisky — as opposed to some guy named Aaron Rodgers. Robinson caught 55 passes for 754 yards and four touchdowns in 2018 as Trubisky actually made the Pro Bowl, but as was the case with Bortles, it didn’t stick. Trubisky regressed and struggled in 2019 and into 2020, until he was benched in favor of Nick Foles in Week 3. That looked like it would go well when Foles threw three fourth-quarter touchdown passes against the Falcons in a 30-26 win over the Falcons, and Robinson caught one of those touchdowns, but the two subsequent games with Foles as starter did not go as well. Foles’ accuracy in the Bears’ 20-19 Thursday night win over the Buccaneers was especially… difficult.

Robinson is a free agent when the 2021 league year begins, unless he signs a new deal with the Bears, or he’s given the franchise tag. Somehow, through all these quarterback debacles, he’s caught 390 passes for 5,170 yards and 35 touchdowns in his NFL career. Imagine what he could do if the other guy at the beginning of all those catches actually knew what he was doing.

#FreeAllenRobinson. Nobody in the NFL deserves it more.