Did the Chicago Bears have insider intel on Alex Leatherwood?

The Chicago Bears just added a first-round draft pick from 2021 to the roster

Alex Leatherwood is easily the biggest name on the list though. The Las Vegas Raiders reached for Leatherwood in the 2021 NFL Draft when they selected him 17th overall. I was fairly high on Leatherwood and had him as my OL8 heading into the draft. I viewed him as a very late first-rounder or early second-rounder — similar to Teven Jenkins who I had ranked higher than Leatherwood by the end of the draft process.

I saw Alex Leatherwood more as an offensive tackle, but I know that many analysts believed he should play inside at guard. I thought he could handle either position and wouldn’t have debated him playing tackle over guard if a team thought he’d excel more at that position.

Alex Leatherwood struggled though. Struggled might be a kind word actually. Leatherwood was straight-up bad in his rookie year. Matt Eberflus spoke about his run-blocking ability and I do agree that he was a better run-blocker than a pass-blocker. That said, he wasn’t elite there either. What really shocked me with this claim was that a disciplined head coach in Matt Eberflus would be okay with adding a guy who had 14 penalties and gave up eight sacks. Yikes.