Your boy Leno doing his thing last night…

[Anytime23]

Lots of people are trying to make the case that it was a mistake to cut him.

Why would it be a mistake if he’s not good. Because we have a shit load of injuries at tackle? How would Leno help if he’s not good? Especially at $11 mil?

Because he has familiarity in the offense and is durable. Id feel better about the line with him at LT than whoever they have right now. I would have rather seen Jenkins at RT even if healthy. People keep talking about the $11M like that money is going into anything that changes the direction of this team in 2021. Its a shit contract. So is Graham, Foles, Jackson, Cohen, Quinn, etc.

 

[modo]

For all of you thinking we should have kept Leno at $11 million this year (even tho he could only get $4 mil from any of the other 31 teams), I feel it’s safe to say he’s still avg at best and nowhere near worth $11 mil. Dumb contract by Pace. Had to be cut.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1426039283954061318

It wasn't a dumb contract at the time. Leno was playing well and deserved it. He dropped like a rock afterwards.

 

[Anytime23]

Contributing at getting his QB killed.

I will still take Jenkins over Leno for not doing anything ... that is life threatening to the QB.

Jenkins not playing results in the same thing. You take an even less talented player and insert him to where Jenkins would play.

 

[Pegger]

A few things:

1 - His cap number was $11MM, but he'll still count towards ~$2.3MM this year and ~$2.7MM next year in dead cap space. With cap space rolling over the move to cut him just locked in the ~$5MM cap hit. I'm not saying he's worth the ~$6MM in additional cap space created (11-5=6), but it's not a full $11MM.

2 - I don't think anyone was pro Leno, they were pro competition. The problem with Leno (and Massie) is that there was never any investment in backups/depth. That's exactly what's currently happening for Jenkins/Ifedi. If Leno was still with Chicago at least Jenkins would have to beat someone out.

3 - You haven't seen the Bears LT options take the field yet. Again, I'm not saying Leno was good, but there's a chance what you put out there is worse.

 

[JoJoBoxer]

Jenkins not playing results in the same thing. You take an even less talented player and insert him to where Jenkins would play.

Wrong.

Not the same thing.

Jenkins not playing might have someone as bad as Leno being forced to play. This part might be the same.

However; Jenkins over Leno saves millions in the salary cap, which means that another starter is lost somewhere, if not 2.

So Jenkins might mean a Leno level player playing in Jenkins place, while Leno certainly will mean a Leno level player playing while possibly losing 2 starters and replacing them with lesser talent.

Not close to the same.

 

[Anytime23]

Wrong.

Not the same thing.

Jenkins not playing might have someone as bad as Leno being forced to play. This part might be the same.

However; Jenkins over Leno saves millions in the salary cap, which means that another starter is lost somewhere, if not 2.

So Jenkins might mean a Leno level player playing in Jenkins place, while Leno certainly will mean a Leno level player playing while possibly losing 2 starters and replacing them with lesser talent.

Not close to the same.

I'm not as familiar with how everyone's contract breaks down like many of you, but what starters are they losing out on if Leno isn't cut? No one that good. Give me Leno at LT and put the 2nd round rookie in his natural position at RT and give your OL more stability over playing backup swing tackles or 2nd year 7th round draft picks. I'll be ok not being able to sign a injured scrub like Desmond Trufant or a guy like Jeremiah Attaochu, who will probably give you just as much as every rotational defensive player has in recent years because at the end of the day, it all comes down to the health and production of their big money players.

Leno isn't good but releasing him didn't improve your roster with whatever money you saved. What is @Pegger saying here, its actually 6M?

 

[remydat]

Did not like the Leno signing at the time but still feel his suckiness is overrated by Bears fans. Showing one rep of him getting beat doesn't tell us anything at all. At best he was a slightly above average tackle and at worst he was a slightly below average tackle. His best attribute was that he was durable.

The question isn't whether Leno was better than Jenkins or Borom at this point. The question is how far down the roster we may have to go at LT. The value of Leno is you didn't have to worry about Alex Bars potentially have to start at LT.

Having said all of that, it is what it is now. No point beating the dead horse. Pace will be judged on this based on whether Jenkins, Borom or someone else can hold down LT when the games matter.

 

[Bearly]

Because he has familiarity in the offense and is durable. Id feel better about the line with him at LT than whoever they have right now. I would have rather seen Jenkins at RT even if healthy. People keep talking about the $11M like that money is going into anything that changes the direction of this team in 2021. Its a shit contract. So is Graham, Foles, Jackson, Cohen, Quinn, etc.

I get it and you're not wrong but I'm happy he's gone. There's a lot of value subtracted for the rest of the O when he's out there. Rushed throws, not sustaining blocks for cutbacks, QBs peaking his way too often etc. On Remy's scale, he's a below average tackle. I'd say slightly below but the lack of expended effort part drops him more for me beyond assignment evaluation.

 

[Anytime23]

I get it and you're not wrong but I'm happy he's gone. There's a lot of value subtracted for the rest of the O when he's out there. Rushed throws, not sustaining blocks for cutbacks, QBs peaking his way too often etc.

The issue here is that we have no clue if anyone else can improve those areas.

 

[Bear_Assed]

My guess is bears find a LT during final roster cuts who costs 1/3 of what Leno would and is as good.

 

[Pegger]

Leno isn't good but releasing him didn't improve your roster with whatever money you saved. What is @Pegger saying here, its actually 6M?

I'd recommend going to www.overthecap.com. It's a great resource not only for team/player specific contracts, but they also produce a lot of articles that are really well informed that follow the same logic that GMs have to do. Another good resource is www.spotrac.com. If I'm being picky it has better 'data', but isn't as user friendly in terms of learning how the cap works and getting articles that apply cap concepts to day to day things.

I'll try to be brief. Leno's cap number was $11MM if he was still on the roster. Cutting players can create something called 'dead cap space'. This is when certain payments like signing bonuses and restructurings happen where the player gets all the money up front, but the team can spread their cap hit of those payments over following years. If the player is cut/traded before those payments are accounted for it results in the team having to account for them typically in the same year the player is no longer on the team.

For Leno the Bears cut him with a post June 1st designation. This means they can take what the full dead cap space hit for 2021 be and spread it over a 2 year period. Due to signing bonus/restructuring that happened within his contract the 'dead cap space' will be $2,294,000 this year and $2,788,000 in 2022. So adding those two together it's ~$5MM, so the total 'savings' of cutting Leno is his 2021 full cap number minus the dead cap space, so 11 - 5 = 6.

If we want to get real technical cutting him 'saved' ~$8.7MM in 2021 ($11M - $2.294,000), but will come at a future cost of $2,788,000 to the 2022 salary cap.

Some new to the salary cap might ask, why would a team structure things in that manner? The answer is that it's the norm in the league. Let's look at Dak Prescott. His signing bonus was $66MM with a base salary of $9MM for 2021. There's no way the Cowboys could have one player account for $75MM (66+7=75) in 2021, so based on the rules they could equally spread the $66MM signing bonus over 5 years, being $13.2MM each year, meaning when you add his salary into the mix his personal cap number shouldn't be above ~$47MM for any specific season.

For Dak it makes sense because he gets $75MM in 2021. For the team it makes sense because they can spread the largest part of his contract, being the signing bonus, over 5 years.

 

[Black Rainbow]

Pace should have done something about Leno during the last 2 years. He's been a glaring liability for awhile now. A good GM wouldn't have let it come down to keeping a bum or inserting a rookie with back problems who's got switch from RT to LT.

Just dumb.

Did we really need Jimmy Graham? Or a stop gap LT?

 

[Bearly]

The issue here is that we have no clue if anyone else can improve those areas.

Why I can’t say that you’re wrong.

 

[SlickWilly]

Did not like the Leno signing at the time but still feel his suckiness is overrated by Bears fans. Showing one rep of him getting beat doesn't tell us anything at all. At best he was a slightly above average tackle and at worst he was a slightly below average tackle. His best attribute was that he was durable.

The question isn't whether Leno was better than Jenkins or Borom at this point. The question is how far down the roster we may have to go at LT. The value of Leno is you didn't have to worry about Alex Bars potentially have to start at LT.

Having said all of that, it is what it is now. No point beating the dead horse. Pace will be judged on this based on whether Jenkins, Borom or someone else can hold down LT when the games matter.

The tape of most games last year begs to differ. He was nowhere near a slightly above average tackle last year.

 

[TheWinman]

For all of you thinking we should have kept Leno at $11 million this year (even tho he could only get $4 mil from any of the other 31 teams), I feel it’s safe to say he’s still avg at best and nowhere near worth $11 mil. Dumb contract by Pace. Had to be cut.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1426039283954061318

He was/is not near average at best

 

[knoxville7]

My guess is bears find a LT during final roster cuts who costs 1/3 of what Leno would and is as good.

hopefully so. But that’s a dangerous game to play with a position as important as LT

 

[ZOMBIE@CTESPN]

It’s just unfortunate events with injuries that keep bums like Leno still on people’s minds. If Jenkins isn’t a go this season I’m sure some of the bums we have for depth will step in and give us the same crap we’ve seen from Leno over the years

 

[remydat]

The tape of most games last year begs to differ. He was nowhere near a slightly above average tackle last year.

What tape. Looking at only his tape doesn't tell us how he ranks compared to his peers. Are you claiming you watched tape of all 64 starting tackles and you are able to say he was definitively worse than 32 out of the 64 starts at LT and RT?

Of the tackles that played 50% of snaps last year (a measure of durability), Leno ranked 20th out of 50. 16 out of 36 if you make it 80% of tackles. His pressure numbers placed him 42nd but his run block grade improved dramatically. Now yes, I know you will say PFF don't know shit but it is the only independent non-biased measure we have because there is no way you Slick Willy can tell me you have watched enough film of the 64 starting tackles in the NFL to know where Leno would rank.

So again that works out to slightly below average to slightly above average if you want to allow for some flaw in the grading system and depending on how much you rank pass vs run blocking. Sometimes Bears fans act like they know all the T in the NFL by name and that there can't be 32 starting tackles out of 64 worse than Leno.

Now again, he was not the future so I don't really have a major beef with letting him go.

 

[ThatGuyRyan]

God he’s fucking terrible.

 

[JoJoBoxer]

I'm not as familiar with how everyone's contract breaks down like many of you, but what starters are they losing out on if Leno isn't cut? No one that good. Give me Leno at LT and put the 2nd round rookie in his natural position at RT and give your OL more stability over playing backup swing tackles or 2nd year 7th round draft picks. I'll be ok not being able to sign a injured scrub like Desmond Trufant or a guy like Jeremiah Attaochu, who will probably give you just as much as every rotational defensive player has in recent years because at the end of the day, it all comes down to the health and production of their big money players.

Leno isn't good but releasing him didn't improve your roster with whatever money you saved. What is @Pegger saying here, its actually 6M?

You still don't get it.

Ok, it wasn't 11M, but it was 6M. That 6M saved does not come from a low level player. It comes from getting rid of someone like Hicks.

Who is harder to replace? Leno or Hicks?

Leno is not very good anymore, neither here nor in Washington and is easily replaced by some UDFA or 6th or 7th round pick tackle. I am not saying that the LT position is easily replaceable. It is the Leno version of the LT position that is replaceable. Borom our 5th round pick's floor is probably Leno level. Anything else that he shows is already an improvement over Leno. Even at Leno level, Borom has a chance at getting better because he is young. Leno's best is long past.

Now Hicks. Do you think that Hicks level of play is easily replaceable? Most people Hicks' size are extremely slow and are just a brick wall. Hicks creates havoc at his size. Yes, he is older, but he can still provide some play that is above almost everyone else from the interior not called Donald.