I like Lucas and feel he could have been our best Olineman had injuries not sucked the life out of him. His rookie year he looked solid and it hurt when he missed 1 game that season. You could see he was talented and i think he was scoring better than Cross. Then the shit hit the fan the next two seasons. How brutal it was for him missing 11 games in 2023 then in 2024 he missed another 10 games. How much was bad luck and how much was it that 2023's injury and 2024's injury were connected. It's always been his one knee right? Didnt Pete say it was a chronic issue when asked about it? I am almost 100% Sure Pete did in fact say that.
I would LOVE to have Abe 100% go as he IS a good answer at RT but that knee... My Dream would be He plays 10 years for us and improves but how realistic is that with his knee.
Yah it's really too bad with Lucas. The type of knee issue he had can end NFL careers (either through performance dropping or just flat out a career ender) but if he can rebound it fills a HUGE hole going into 2025. I also recall reading it was a chronic knee issue and some say it was a concern with him coming out of college which may have impacted his draft stock? I swore I remember reading that somewhere.
It was no surprise he looked better than Cross. Cross was barely 22 years old when he came into the league (Lucas was already 24 - those two are almost exactly 2 years apart). It was expected it'd take him a couple years to build up the acumen to play worthy of a top 10 pick, especially at LT - a harder more demanding position than RT. And IMO in 2025, he did. He was basically the only good/consistent OL on our entire team lol.