It took a while for Josh Bellamy to get his career going in the NFL. After going undrafted in 2012, Bellamy bounced around first with the Chiefs, then the next year with the Chargers and Washington, and then finally he signed with Chicago in 2014. He still didn’t make a catch in a regular season game until 2015, when he hauled in 19 of them including two touchdowns.
NFL breakout players 2018: Josh Bellamy will go from busting ass to busting out for the Bears
The wide receiver can run any route, and he’ll do whatever the Bears ask of him.
Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
That would be quite the impressive career turnaround if the story ended there. However, after watching him catch 24 balls for 376 yards and a touchdown last season, I believe Bellamy is ready to go from just being a regular contributor to a focal point of the offense in Chicago.
The first thing that stands out watching Bellamy on film is how quickly he gets to full speed on almost every play. The guy is hunched over in his stance before the play like he’s letting the defense know he’s coming, and he’s just a damn blur coming off the line when the ball is finally snapped.
Doesn’t matter if he’s run blocking or running a go route, it all looks the same because he’s always hauling ass.
I would imagine a guy like Bellamy, who had to fight to hang on in the league, learned the importance of hustle early on, and it shows when you watch his film. I love watching players bust their ass because that doesn’t take any talent. But the great thing about Bellamy is that he has plenty of talent, too.
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Bellamy runs crisp routes and since he’s always flying around, he gets a lot of cornerbacks bailing out of their stances early, which opens up the underneath routes. And yet Bellamy still tends to get open deep on a pretty regular basis. He had catches of 46, 36, and 30 yards last season when the offense wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders.
In addition to his speed, Bellamy has pretty good hands, especially in traffic. I did see a drop or two from him, but they were “just” concentration drops where he was looking to run before he looked the ball all the way in. That is correctable. On the whole he catches the football “correctly,” and it looks like it comes naturally to him. I saw him make several nice catches of balls that were off target, and that’s something you need to help the confidence of a young quarterback like Mitchell Trubisky.
Bellamy also ain’t scared of contact.
He’s got good size at 6’0 and 208 pounds, so he can run all kinds of routes whether short, intermediate, or deep. And he can make plays.
The only thing I worry about when it comes to Bellamy putting up big stats this year is whether there will be enough footballs to go around with free agent signees Allen Robinson and Taylor Gabriel, as well as rookie second-round pick Anthony Miller, added to the fold since last season ended. At the end of the day, I just believe Bellamy showed last year that he is good enough to get opportunities and that he will make the most of those opportunities in an offense that should be a hell of a lot better scheme- and execution-wise than it was a year ago.
That should equate to a breakout season for him, so that’s what I’m going with here.
Confidence Level: Moderate
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