Daniel Kyri and Jake Lockett will be both leaving Chicago Fire this season, and fans are still so devastated by this news.

Daniel joined the show in season 7 as Firefighter Darren Ritter in a recurring role before getting promoted to the main cast two seasons later. Jake has been on Chicago Fire as Sam Carver since season 11. He too started in a recurring role and got bumped up to series regular for season 13.

Now, showrunner Andrea Newman is speaking out about the cast exits.

She told TV Line, “Our characters have always — and this is the luxury of 13 seasons — but a bunch of them have come and gone and come back. There’s still so much to be figured out with those two and those characters. We love the actors, we love the characters, and we want to give them some good, surprising moments and goodbyes, and then maybe hellos later down the line.”

About Jake and Daniel leaving, she shared, “There weren’t a lot of creative decisions behind [the departures], because it all became this, like, ax falling across the network,” she said, alluding to the budget cuts that are the logical reason behind the exits.

“We love these characters and could play with them forever,” she said.

“There’s always fun in bringing somebody new in, as well, and you have to shake these things up. And Pascal is the best example of that, because Pascal came in this year and kind of everybody turned spinning. It wasn’t just that character in the room, it was how everybody else responded to him that was fun to play. So mixing it up is always a good thing, and we’ll write to that next season… Change isn’t always good at 51, but then sometimes, it surprises you and lifts everybody up,” she said. continued.