Chicago Bears: Kyle Long retires after up-and-down seven seasons

After seven up and down seasons, Chicago Bears offensive lineman Kyle Long has decided to hang up his cleats, as many expected.

The news that many around the Chicago Bears expected came yesterday — offensive lineman Kyle Long announced his retirement.

When Long came to Chicago in 2013 (first round, 20th pick overall), he became one of the lone bright spots on the team. The Bears were 8-8 in his first season and 8-8 in his final season. In between, they owned a record of 31-49. The only winning record the Bears had in the Long era was 2018 when they went 12-4.

Without much winning going on, Bears fans rooted for Long and his aggressive play. Off the field, he entertained many with his Twitter posts, being as aggressive on social media as he was on the field.

It was appropriate then that Long took to Twitter to announce his retirement. He said some might be happy and some might be sad that he steps away but that he felt lucky to be in Chicago. He also went on to thank former general manager Phil Emery, who drafted him, and current general manager Ryan Pace, along with former head coach Marc Trestman and current head coach Matt Nagy.

Long had a great start to his career. He played in 47 out of a possible 48 games in his first three seasons. Additionally, he made it to the Pro Bowl in each of those three seasons. He was a team-first kind of player. Even though he was one of the top right guards in the NFL, he moved over to right tackle in his third season and made the Pro Bowl there as well. Also, he restructured his contract to free up salary cap space for the team.

Then the injuries hit. After playing in all 16 games in 2015, Long would never play more than 10 games for the rest of his career. He started the 2016 season playing with a torn labrum in his shoulder. He also had a strained triceps injury. Then, around the middle of the season, he suffered a gruesome ankle injury that ended his season.

In 2017, Long aggravated both his shoulder and his ankle injuries and again had his season cut short. He started out the 2018 season healthy but then suffered a foot injury that kept him out of eight games. He did come back and played in the playoff game, however.

Then, this season, Long suffered a hip injury. He missed the Week 4 game against the Minnesota Vikings but came back for the Week 5 game in London against the Oakland Raiders. The injury persisted and the Bears placed him on injured reserve after he played in only four games.

The prevailing thought on Long was that the Chicago Bears would part ways with him. The Bears need to free up some salary cap space and without him the Bears save $8.1 million. According to Over The Cap, the Bears now have over $26 million in cap space with Long’s retirement.

Pace spoke about Long in his end of the season press conference, per Yahoo:

"We think the world of him. It’s unfortunate he’s had a handful of injuries and he’s tried to battle through all of them. Kyle does have an option in his contract that we’ve got to look at.That’ll be one of the many decisions we have to make on him. But I feel bad for all the injuries he’s tried to overcome."

The Bears had a difficult time replacing Long in 2019. They used Ted Larsen and Rashaad Coward. Larsen also got injured and wasn’t effective when he came back and Coward didn’t play well enough to be considered an option as a starter.

When Long was healthy he was one of the top offensive linemen in the league. He was a pleasure to watch. Seeing him suffer through all the injuries was difficult and now it’s best that he lets his body completely heal and have a long and healthy life post-career.