Must be if we are resorting to signing a 75 year old OL. Peters is probably already collecting social security payments.
Yeah, Pace has completely mismanaged the OL, and it's spiraling. Peters isn't the fix. But Pace has painted himself into a corner and has no idea how to get out of it. No news on Jenkins at all can't be good.
Since it was brought up, and I need to vent: Nagy has said that the team was well aware of Jenkins' back problems before the draft. Pace traded up to get Jenkins, despite there being other OT prospects on the board at the time. Pace planned for Jenkins to start at LT, despite playing RT his whole career. Pace did not create conditions for any NFL-level contingency plan at LT despite several opportunities including after draft free agency. Whenever people ask me why I don't like Ryan Pace, I just... I don't know how to respond without punching them in the face.
He started the majority of games at RT in his career. He's played games at LT. Gundy's put him at LT to start the season and then bounce around because of injury and the way their gimmicky offense was situated, they had run and quick short/medium pass, basically a poor mans Tebow at QB and Chubba Hubbard, who so much mileage on him before going pro. I'm perfectly fine with Jenkins being the plan at LT, and think he can figure it out. Ev pointed out somewhere--we don't have Morgan Moses because we have Germaine Ifedi on a 2nd short-term "prove it" deal. That could have been someone better than Elijah Wilkinson, Ifedi, and Leno. That's about $16 mil in cap space. Pace can cop out behind timing because Moses was released in May/after the draft and free agency. I can see as many reasons to avoid guys like Alejandro Villanueva, Eric Fisher, or Reilly Reiff who all got 7-8 mil a piece than to pursue them. Maybe*** he uses this upcoming training cap cuts to his advantage. I'd like to give credit to Pace for knowing this is probably the time to get the best bargain on most guys being cut/released because of the cap situation he fucked himself into. But I also know better. I want to know what it is and when he got it. He started all games last year at Oklahoma State, even though he opted out on November 30th for the draft. Was this something he played with last year? Was this something he did during pre-draft meetings/workouts? Was it something that he aggravated in minicamp that he wound up needing a procedure for? He didn't play in the Senior Bowl/EW Shrine game or the other workout/exhibition week and game, he just worked out with most teams as most draft prospects would normally do.
Think long term... I still believe his skill set makes him the best choice at the time. If this surgery fixes his issue, then you should have a nice offensive line piece for the future. He doesn't have an injury history, so I don't see it as a red flag.
I get the positivity but we don't know what the injury even is. The bears won't talk about it and the only thing that's been admitted is when Nagy confirmed that they KNEW he was hurt prior to drafting him and our genius GM traded up to take him anyways. If this was small/muscular, Nagy/Pace are definitely the kind to show up in front of the media and preach about how it's not all bad/their fault. Its kind of Pace's MO to disappear/duck when tough questions from the media are inevitable until he absolutely has to at important dates, like end of year pressers, combine stuff, etc. And even then he'll duck tough questions by saying the incident he screwed up happened long ago and now he's evaluating something new or some other BS. But when good things happen--he's front and center patting himself on the back. To say its a 'bad look' that you traded up for him would be too kind. The bears did this before--took a pre-injured LT out of college who had back surgery then was out of the league because he couldn't stay on the field. What makes this worse is the bears didn't trade assets to move up for Chris Williams.
How can anyone be surprised by this? Pace trades up for a player that apparently staffs knew had an injury, then downplayed it all offseason before finally resorting to actual measures to try and fix what is likely a serious injury. We've seen Kevin White before. Everyone wants to flash back to former OT picks due to the position, but the reality is that this is who Pace is, and this was very reminiscent of the way they handled the Kevin White issue. And we're probably going to have to wait until next season to see anything from this kid. Cool, cool, cool, cool...
Apparently he's also unvaccinated, meaning he could be scratched from a game at any moment. Miss Leno yet?
I don't know if I wrote it here, but I remember seeing people celebrating Leno being cut and thinking, "Please don't make me defend this piece of s***". Pat is right that Leno is awful, and had no business being paid what he was, or even being a starting OT. But Pace also didn't get an actual starting OT to replace him, which is what I feared from the start. Kind of his thing. So here we are. And what's sad is that we all saw this coming, I'd wager. Getting real tired of this s***. Wish they would've announced this a week ago when I paid for the Gamepass...
Willams was the 14th pick in the draft, Jenkins was the 39th. So I can’t be as mad about it. We all feel that Pace was not deserving of making any picks in this past draft but here we are with Pace getting a third bite at the QB apple(I count Foles as his second). So this draft class will be all about Fields. If Jenkins never plays a down for the Bears but Fields is the real deal nobody will give a shit. I can’t really beat up Pace for taking a swing for the fences here and I don’t hold Nagy responsible at all. HC’s should not be making medical calls in players. They are not qualified. As for plan B not many clubs have plan B’s at LT and please don’t give me the we should have kept Leno BS. Not at his price tag. But Pace dumping Fuller. Oh boy don’t get me started on the absolute dumb as fuck shit move of all time that was. I was so pissed when that news came down that I actually just tuned out for the entire offseason. Only to start paying attention when camp started. Nagy has a legit second chance here with Fields. He didn’t draft Trubisky. For some reason ownership loves Pace and will not fire him. If they didn’t after drafting Trubisky who knows what it will take.
We all know what Leno is, honestly, it won't take much to fill those tiny shoes at Leno's level, and besides that, it did open up 9 million to spend unwisely on another position of need on another hole Very Jerry himself created. Sounds like a typical Bears GM plan to me.
Jenkins is having surgery. Bears "hope" to have him back this year but I expect we don't see him until next years training camp.
No where did I say I wanted Leno back at that price. Good riddance to him. The point is given our current situation we'll most likely miss him this year. As for Pace not having a plan B for LT, fuck yeah I will rip him for it. He relied on a rookie who never played the position in college to start right away, all while being aware of his back issue. Fuck Pace.
You're right. Drafting a college RT with back problems that caused him to miss his final 3 college games and making him your starting LT before training camp begins without having a tested backup on the roster is a really solid plan in the NFL. No reason at all to even think about having a backup plan.
