The Bears are always looking for help at receiver and returner, particularly from someone familiar with Ben Johnson\u2019s offensive system, and they signed a former Detroit practice squad player on Friday.<\/p>\n
Over the past week, the Bears have brought in coaches from the Lions and Saints who have ties to Ben Johnson, and now they\u2019ve added a player.<\/p>\n
Despite free agency not starting until March 10, with the legal tampering period, former Lions wide receiver Maurice Alexander was signed to a futures contract by the Bears on Friday.<\/p>\n
Standing 5-foot-11 and weighing 174 pounds, the 28-year-old slot receiver from Florida International has spent time on the Lions’ practice squad and appeared in seven games for Detroit over the 2022 and 2024 seasons.<\/p>\n
Before the NFL season, he played in the USFL in 2022, making 20 catches for 234 yards.<\/p>\n
He only caught one pass for 7 yards but showed his special teams skills, averaging 24.3 yards on six kick returns in 2022, with a long return of 47 yards. He also returned four punts in 2024, averaging a solid 10.5 yards per return.<\/p>\n
The Bears had DeAndre Carter handling return duties until he was sidelined with a hamstring injury against the 49ers in December. Carter averaged 31.9 yards on 15 kick returns and 9.3 yards on 17 punt returns, ranking third in the league for anyone with at least 12 returns.<\/p>\n
Carter was playing on a one-year contract in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Bears are always looking for help at receiver and returner, particularly from someone familiar with Ben Johnson\u2019s offensive system, and they signed a former Detroit practice squad player on Friday. Over the past week, the Bears have brought in coaches from the Lions and Saints who have ties to Ben Johnson, and now they\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23128,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[378],"tags":[2318,2032],"class_list":["post-23119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-detroit-lions","tag-ben-johnsons","tag-maurice-alexander"],"yoast_head":"\n