Leno

[BearFan PHX]

I'm just looking at some footage from the Cowboys game, and able to watch certain players rather than the ball on the second look.

Gosh Leno is terrible. Just awful.

I think if you had to find one player to blame the whole season on, he might make a good candidate.

Of course it is more than one player, but Leno is probably the worst player at any position on our team.

YUCK!

[Alaskan Grizzly]

3 hours ago, BearFan NYC said:

I'm just looking at some footage from the Cowboys game, and able to watch certain players rather than the ball on the second look.

Gosh Leno is terrible. Just awful.

I think if you had to find one player to blame the whole season on, he might make a good candidate.

Of course it is more than one player, but Leno is probably the worst player at any position on our team.

YUCK!

Not that I would solely blame him for what's illed the offense, he certainly hasn't helped. Its been so bad for him this year that whenever the flag is thrown on the offense its due to him holding or jumping offisdes.  Ever since they shuffled the o-line around the overall mess that was the o-line has gotten better...except him.  Which is unfortunate, seems like last year he was doing pretty well and is a good kid.  His days in Chicago may be numbered if this keeps up.  It's times like this where Jason's insight on oline performance is missed.  

[BearFan PHX]

yeah the penalties, but he is unable to even make a block. He is consistently AWFUL.

Of course he isnt the only one to blame, but he is worse than we even think he is.

With a halfway average OL, this team would have been 12-4 again, even with all the disfunction. Sure Nagy didnt call running plays, but this OL didnt block them either. Just a waste of a season.

In fact, I will go so far as to say that If Leno was the 15th best OT in the game, just middle tier, we'd have won several more games this year.

[adam]

6 hours ago, BearFan NYC said:

I'm just looking at some footage from the Cowboys game, and able to watch certain players rather than the ball on the second look.

Gosh Leno is terrible. Just awful.

I think if you had to find one player to blame the whole season on, he might make a good candidate.

Of course it is more than one player, but Leno is probably the worst player at any position on our team.

YUCK!

I really don't understand how he doesn't grade out as one of the worst LT's in the league. We are unfortunately stuck with him with that contract. My belief is once he got paid, he got lazy. He is another guy that needs to be benched. One option would be to move him to RT, but we still have Massie's contract to deal with.

[Mongo3451]

Leno had two things happen to him last year.  He got paid and got engaged.  I'm sure that took a lot away from his off season strength training.  He can turn it around if he regains his focus on football.

[adam]

1 minute ago, Mongo3451 said:

Leno had two things happen to him last year.  He got paid and got engaged.  I'm sure that took a lot away from his off season strength training.  He can turn it around if he regains his focus on football.

Mongo, and even one of those can be killer from a conditioning and focus standpoint. He had a double whammy on both (no pun intended).

[BearFan PHX]

hes not just losing physical battles, he is out of position and blocking the wrong guy over and over. He is better on the bench.

[Mongo3451]

9 minutes ago, BearFan NYC said:

hes not just losing physical battles, he is out of position and blocking the wrong guy over and over. He is better on the bench.

He has definitely been a liability in the run game.  He has played well in pass protection, as I have rarely seen our QB blasted from the blind side.  Miller made him look like a fool last week on the wildcat play.  Miller was supposed to crack and allow Leno to pull.  If we get our right side back to mauling people, Leno will be much better off.

Imo, the whole team is playing better with the weight of the slump off their backs.  Look how tight Dallas was last week.  You could see it all over their sideline. 

Our boys are learning to win the right way by grinding wins and effort.  Last year created a huge expectation that they didn't completely earn through a steady rise.  Let's watch it get turned up a notch this weekend.

[BearFan PHX]

I'm all for the growing steps this team takes. I just think it has to be without Leno next year. I suppose you can read what Im saying as complaining and negative, but underneath that, there is optimism and hope. Thats why I want Leno gone, so the team will be better.

I gotta say, I think we havent seen the Lawrence Taylor type speed move that drops Trubisky because Leno has been so susceptible to the bull rush. Think how many times Mitch was throwing with Leno in his lap this year.

I agree the last couple of weeks the pass pro has been better. But if you watch the YouTube "tape never lies" every week, and look at Leno, it's incredible how bad he is.

[AZ54]

I think earlier in the year I put him right behind Kyle Long for worst blocker on the Oline.   Unfortunately we put our backup OT Coward at RG and now with Massie out we have our other backup OT Lucas at RT.   At least I can say Hiestand was right about keeping both of them.  The only other option I was hoping for was that Bars was ready to take over at RG and we could have moved Coward to LT.  

Leno's not going anywhere unless we know his replacement is on the roster.  That won't happen until training camp next year.  I agree with the engagement, contract, and now a baby is reportedly on the way, are all distractions that pulled his focus away from the job.  Hopefully he can turn it around this offseason.  He was always an average talent who succeeded by not making the big mistakes.  Not this year.  

[Mongo3451]

Plain and simple with Leno.  If he's not at his best, his talent isn't good enough.  I see a guy that really needs to re-dedicate to the weight room.  You get bull rushed because you didn't spend time at the squat rack.  You go a little higher with your hands because your initial punch shows that you haven't been working the incline bench in the off-season.  When a lineman is weaker than his opponent, he starts to cheat the fundamentals.  He starts to guess and over compensates his movement by leaning or overstepping.   All of his problems look to be from lack of conditioning on the weight room.  He knows it as well as his team mates and coaches.  He'll fix it this off season or the contingency Pace WILL bring in will have a shot.