Charles Leno signs three year extension

[turtle28]

7 hours ago, RSkinGM said:

I thought Lucas held his own last year - he would be cheaper . Also, maybe someone else gets cut this year like Leno .. I don't hate the move . Tough job filling the roster and L T is a top position . 

Lucas held his own bc Alex Smith got rid of the ball quick mostly on short passes. If you've noticed this year Heinickie doesn't get rid of the ball as quickly - sometimes missing or passing up open WRs 5-10 yards away - and Lucas hasn’t been quite as good as he was last year.  

[MKnight82]

Ya even at $12.5 Leno would have only been the 16th highest paid LT this year.  That sounds about right, plus these will probably go up next year. 

[ARTMONK HOF]

 

[naptownskinsfan]

On 1/5/2022 at 10:03 PM, e16bball said:

Feel like Leno signing definitely deserves its own thread.

You are correct.  We will shut down the threads like the news thread if we can not do a better job of creating threads for newsworthy players.  Anyone who is a starter or receives substantial snaps deserves their own thread.  

[Thaiphoon]

12 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said:

You are correct.  We will shut down the threads like the news thread if we can not do a better job of creating threads for newsworthy players.  Anyone who is a starter or receives substantial snaps deserves their own thread.  

Correct. Sorry I missed this earlier, guys. 

As for this signing, this is a good deal. Smart to lock him up and the price is not exorbitant. I like this move by the team.

[ARTMONK HOF]

1 hour ago, naptownskinsfan said:

You are correct.  We will shut down the threads like the news thread if we can not do a better job of creating threads for newsworthy players.  Anyone who is a starter or receives substantial snaps deserves their own thread.  

That’s my fault as you know. 

Edited January 7, 2022 by ARTMONK HOF

[ARTMONK HOF]

 

[e16bball]

1 hour ago, ARTMONK HOF said:

That’s my fault as you know. 

Definitely not, and I didn’t want it to come off like that. You bring as much or more interesting news as anyone to the forum, I just wanted to make the point that you should feel free to pull the trigger on starting threads. I love coming on and seeing new threads with breaking news, personally.

EDIT: ...he said, vastly overstepping his bounds, not having been a mod of this forum for like a decade 😂

Edited January 7, 2022 by e16bball

[RSkinGM]

20 minutes ago, ARTMONK HOF said:

 

Yeow, if I counted correctly -that's like 23 free agents ! Maybe only9-10 important enough to keep- still a bunch ! Lot of work to do !!

[e16bball]

Three years is a little longer than I had in mind (well...one year longer, I guess), but I’m sure they’ve structured it in a way that they can get out if they need to. 

One of the interesting questions for me is whether this takes OT off the table for the upcoming draft. You would imagine it would, with Leno and Cosmi both under contract for the next 3 years, but there’s a real possibility where someone like Charles Cross or even Ikem Ekwonu may be the clear BPA as an OT. Wonder if they’d pass on them at this point because they’ve “Cross”ed OT off the list. 

[e16bball]

Also, I think we should just take a moment to appreciate the good work of John Matsko. Charles Leno is a guy who had previously been so average/mediocre that the Bears let him — their long-time starting LT — walk away for absolutely nothing, to free up snaps for a rookie who played RT in college and had a lingering back injury. 

He comes here and, while he certainly was not an All-Pro type, played really well for us for the most part. In pass pro and the run game. And that was just one of the multiple impressive coaching jobs he’s pulled off over the course of his two years here. 

[ARTMONK HOF]

13 minutes ago, RSkinGM said:

Yeow, if I counted correctly -that's like 23 free agents ! Maybe only9-10 important enough to keep- still a bunch ! Lot of work to do !!

As I was looking at the article, the list was like never ending. Like you couldn’t believe how many there were. 

[RSkinGM]

9 minutes ago, e16bball said:

Also, I think we should just take a moment to appreciate the good work of John Matsko. Charles Leno is a guy who had previously been so average/mediocre that the Bears let him — their long-time starting LT — walk away for absolutely nothing, to free up snaps for a rookie who played RT in college and had a lingering back injury. 

He comes here and, while he certainly was not an All-Pro type, played really well for us for the most part. In pass pro and the run game. And that was just one of the multiple impressive coaching jobs he’s pulled off over the course of his two years here. 

I agree on Matsko but--I seem to remember the Bears liked Leno but had major cap problems . I don't think he was ever a world beater so they let him walk. They probably would have had to offer him long term deal at way more than the $5 mill we paid . 

[naptownskinsfan]

1 hour ago, e16bball said:

Also, I think we should just take a moment to appreciate the good work of John Matsko. Charles Leno is a guy who had previously been so average/mediocre that the Bears let him — their long-time starting LT — walk away for absolutely nothing, to free up snaps for a rookie who played RT in college and had a lingering back injury. 

He comes here and, while he certainly was not an All-Pro type, played really well for us for the most part. In pass pro and the run game. And that was just one of the multiple impressive coaching jobs he’s pulled off over the course of his two years here. 

Matsko, Horner (TE) and Jordan (RB) are the only coaches who I would retain after the first two seasons.  

Matsko proving once again that he’s a top OL coach in the business.  He was about the only coach who I was excited about coming from Carolina with him, and he’s not disappointed us.  When you lose a Bill Callahan, you expect to take a step back, but we haven’t.  

[e16bball]

16 minutes ago, naptownskinsfan said:

Matsko, Horner (TE) and Jordan (RB) are the only coaches who I would retain after the first two seasons.  

Matsko proving once again that he’s a top OL coach in the business.  He was about the only coach who I was excited about coming from Carolina with him, and he’s not disappointed us.  When you lose a Bill Callahan, you expect to take a step back, but we haven’t.  

I would add Zampese to that list, I think he’s done admirable work with the absolutely zero talent they’ve given him at the QB position. Having the team in position to win games with the corpse of Alex Smith and Taylor Heinicke (direct from the scrap heap) is an accomplishment in my book. Even Kyle Allen played better than expected last season in his starts. 

I feel somewhat similarly about Drew Terrell, the WR coach. The WR group isn’t particularly good — but did we expect it to be? A lot of bottom-shelf talents there, when you factor in Samuel being MIA all season basically. I suppose both AGG and Dyami Brown have underachieved to varying degrees, that’s something of a knock on him. But the (relative) success of guys like Cam Sims and DeAndre Carter has been a real surprise. 

On defense, the whole thing was a complete disappointment this year. I wouldn’t care if they pulled the plug and canned all of them, although I do think Chris Harris is probably a pretty good coach. But their attempt to get that secondary ready to play together early on was absolutely an unmitigated disaster.