Thread: Lance Briggs Gate II (Briggs Want Raise, Not a Trade)

What's Lance Briggs' deal?


Lance Briggs pretends to reach out to fans while riding past in a golf cart before practice at training camp. (Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune / August 7, 2011)


Staff report 6:01 a.m. CDT, August 29, 2011


Lance Briggs signed a six-year contract worth $36 million in March 2008.

Already paid: $21.6 million. -- Includes $4 million signing bonus and $11.8 million in roster bonuses. What's owed: $14.4 million.

2011 Base salary: $3,650,000 Roster bonus: $250,000 *Salary-cap hit: $4,566,667

2012 Base salary: $3,750,000 Roster bonus: $250,000 *Salary-cap hit: $4,666,667

2013 Base salary: $6,250,000 Roster bonus: $250,000 *Salary-cap hit: $7,166,667

*--includes one-sixth of his signing bonus

Originally Posted by Slipscreen

I find it hard to feel for a guy that signed a contract, maybe his agent should have looked at the numbers a bit more.

His agent is Drew Rosenhaus and if you know how he works you'd have the answer to that. Rosenhaus never saw a deal he wouldn't renegotiate if he thought he could. He tells guys to sign for less than they want and he'll hit the team up for more money while the contract is still in force which is just what he's doing with Briggs. Why not get paid twice rather than once is his motto. Drew thinks about Drew and that's it.

Originally Posted by soulman

What's Lance Briggs' deal?


Lance Briggs pretends to reach out to fans while riding past in a golf cart before practice at training camp. (Scott Strazzante, Chicago Tribune / August 7, 2011)


Staff report 6:01 a.m. CDT, August 29, 2011


Lance Briggs signed a six-year contract worth $36 million in March 2008.

Already paid: $21.6 million. -- Includes $4 million signing bonus and $11.8 million in roster bonuses. What's owed: $14.4 million.

2011 Base salary: $3,650,000 Roster bonus: $250,000 *Salary-cap hit: $4,566,667

2012 Base salary: $3,750,000 Roster bonus: $250,000 *Salary-cap hit: $4,666,667

2013 Base salary: $6,250,000 Roster bonus: $250,000 *Salary-cap hit: $7,166,667

*--includes one-sixth of his signing bonus

Maybe the smartest thing JA could have done was to flip flop 2013 this year like he was asked to if that would have been where it stopped. No new money! But.......I've gotta feeling that wouldn't have satisfied Rosenhaus since no new money, no new fee for him. They'd have been back after the season looking for more anyway.

Hey, Lance—life in the NFL just isn’t fair sometimes

BY MARK POTASH mpotash@suntimes.com August 29, 2011 12:24PM


Linebacker Lance Briggs is hoping that the Bears might restructure his contract. | Tom Cruze/Sun-Times Media


Updated: August 29, 2011 1:29PM

I’m all for Lance Briggs getting every penny he deserves — as long as he gets it from Cedric Benson, Chester Taylor and Brandon Manumaleuna.

The Bears invested more than $30 million in those three players, and when all three crapped out the Bears got not one red cent back. Lance Briggs ought to think about that the next time he tries to convince us the NFL salary structure is unfairly tilted in favor of the National Football League.

So before Lance gets on his soapbox — assuming he’ll talk to the rest of the media this season — and lectures us about the inequity that justifies his selfish contract gambit, let me pre-emptively argue that it is pure folly.

The NFL deserves many of the most vicious criticisms thrown its way. It is rife with hypocrisy, cold-hearted corporatism and greed. It has a shameful record of taking care of the players who helped make it what it is today. But that’s not all the NFL is. So don’t use that reputation of the league as a heartless monolith to sell the idea that the NFL salary structure is a one-way street, where players who outperform their contract are stuck with their deal, while the underperforming player can be cut because they have non-guaranteed contracts.

It’s a specious argument. For one thing, any NFL long-term contract contains guaranteed bonus money (most of which would not exist if salaries were guaranteed). When Briggs signed his six-year, $36 million contract in 2008, he received a $4 million signing bonus and an additional $9 million in roster bonuses. If the Bears cut him tomorrow, they don’t have to pay him the $16 million in salary left on his deal, but they can’t touch one dime of the nearly $13 million in bonuses he’s received. What a tough deal for these guys. Those cold, cruel Oakland Raiders dumped Jamarcus Russell with three years and nearly $22 million in salary left on his contract — all he got out of the deal was $39 million for three years work.

The Bears operate in dysfunctional ways on several levels. But fair is fair. If we’re going to blame them for overpaying Taylor and Manumaleuna last year, we can’t also blame them for underpaying Matt Forte. And we sure can’t blame them for signing Briggs to a market-value contract in 2008 that makes Briggs a bargain this year. You win some, you lose some. Briggs and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, didn’t think this scenario might ensue when they signed the deal three years ago? Shame on them, not the Bears. (That's a very stupid statement to make. One has nothing to do with the other. Don't they teach logic in journalism school)

Considering the fact that the Bears caved in to Brian Urlacher’s demand for more money two years ago, it would be prudent for the Bears to flip Briggs’ salaries for 2011 ($3.65 million) and 2013 ($6.25 million). It would ostensibly increase the guaranteed money by $2.6 million. And the Bears have the cap space to do it.
(That's kinda what I thought too. We have mucho excess cap now but who knows what 2013 will look like. Too small a difference in the TMV to worry about. This is where JA can be penny wise and pound foolish)

(And the Urlacher extension doesn’t necessarily obligate the Bears to give in to Briggs. While Briggs might be Urlacher’s equal today, over the course of their careers to date, Urlacher has made a significantly bigger impact on the Bears and the NFL.) (And that's exactly what he and Rosenhaus will use as a negotiation tool. Briggs has made less than Url in the past but now it should be more equal since their play is more equal)

Of course, if the Bears were that magnanimous and sensible, Olin Kreutz would still be at center and the Bears would have given the Baltimore Ravens their fourth-round draft pick last April. The Bears just don’t operate like that. But the fact of the matter is they’ve taken care of Briggs over the course of his career — they’ve paid him more than $30 million in his eight seasons. Briggs just hasn’t been at the right place at the right time to be treated like a king. More than likely, he’ll have to learn to live with that. It’s part of being a Bear. Believe it or not, there are worse fates in the NFL, and certainly outside of it. (And this is what he's trying to change now that it's the right time and if it's not the right place then he wants that changed too)

Unfortunately, this already is a distraction the Bears don’t need. The season opener is 13 days away. It’s time for Lance Briggs to shut up and play. It’s a little disconcerting that he should be telling us that — not the other way around.

He’s no Urlacher: Bears unlikely to give Lance Briggs new contract

RICK MORRISSEY rmorrissey@suntimes.com August 28, 2011 9:58PM




BOURBONNAIS, IL - AUGUST 06: Brian Urlacher #54 and Lance Briggs #55 (R) of the Chicago Bears work out during a summer training camp practice at Olivet Nazarene University on August 6, 2011 in Bourbonnais, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images)




Updated: August 29, 2011 2:09AM

Lance Briggs is not Brian Urlacher, and therein lies the problem in Briggs’ quest for another boatload of money from the Bears. You can attribute his difficulties in this matter to whatever you want — unfairness, organizational cheapness, even racial bias — but the fact is that Urlacher was able to crowbar a contract extension out of the Bears three years ago because he was Brian Urlacher.

“Being Brian Urlacher” means being the guy who symbolizes the franchise. It means being a man with freakish speed. It means being from the same Bears linebacker lineage that produced Bill George, Dick Butkus and Mike Singletary.
It doesn’t matter why Urlacher is astoundingly popular. It only mattered that he was when he got the Bears to give him an $18 million extension in 2008.

Briggs doesn’t carry that kind of weight. He’s an excellent linebacker. He’s also a huge comic-book fan, so we’ll put it in terms he’ll appreciate: In Chicago, he’s more like Robin than Batman, though to Briggs’ credit, Robin didn’t get voted to six straight Pro Bowls.

Right now, Briggs is as good or better than Urlacher, but, again, it doesn’t matter. He’s not an icon, which is what Urlacher is and was and will be. If you walk around Soldier Field on game day, you’ll see lots of middle-aged men wearing No. 54 jerseys. It’s not a good look for people of that vintage, but try telling that to one of them.

Still three years left on deal
Briggs reportedly has asked for a new contract, even though he has three years left on his six-year, $36 million deal. If he doesn’t get one, he’ll demand a trade after this season, according to a published report. Briggs almost surely will say this isn’t about Urlacher, his friend, but rather about the lesser linebackers around the NFL who have recently signed nice contracts. But it is about Urlacher as it relates to making an exception.

Urlacher is the bullet-headed face of the organization. Briggs isn’t. The Bears made an exception for Urlacher because he was Urlacher, with all the powerful meaning that goes with that. An exception normally is a one-time thing. There can’t be a Briggs exception, unless the Bears someday want a Gabe Carimi exception, a Major Wright exception or a whoever-comes-along-next exception.

Every professional sports franchise knows that, at some point, it has to draw a line when it comes to money. Otherwise, the message is that a contract doesn’t mean a thing. If it doesn’t, every player who wants more money will have reason to believe his contract is written in pencil.

And every player wants more money.
Briggs turns 31 in November. That’s an age when linebackers already are wearing down from the abuse their bodies has taken and given. The linebackers who have recently signed big contracts are younger than Briggs. Very few linebackers are better at 31 than they are at 27.

For the Bears, there doesn’t appear to be a huge downside to saying no to Briggs on a new deal, aside from having a disgruntled player on their hands, and they’re used to that with him. With his contract not scheduled to expire until after the 2013 season, he doesn’t have a lot of options, other than sitting out. The Bears don’t have an obvious replacement for him on their roster, but it’s hard to see them backing down on this one. If general manager Jerry Angelo gives in, he’s going to find many more players at his door in the next few years.

Briggs is not a victim. He’s the one who signed the contract in 2008. He’s the one who already has collected $13 million in guaranteed money from the deal. He already had been a three-time Pro Bowl selection when he signed the contract, so both sides agreed to the deal with the expectation that he was going to continue to be great. If he had then gone on to be a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year winner, he’d have a much better argument right now.

Bears made exception for No. 54
It doesn’t matter that Briggs has accomplished more than Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk, who received an $8 million signing bonus when he signed a new contract in March. That’s not how it works — or at least that’s not how it works when it comes to the Bears and any linebacker not named “Brian Urlacher.’’

What if the year was 2012 and the player demanding a new deal was Jay Cutler? Would the Bears budge with a quarterback who signed a two-year contract extension in 2009 worth $20 million in guarantees? I don’t think so. Cutler might have star power, but he’s not Urlacher. He’s doesn’t have the hold on Chicago the way Urlacher does.

In 2007, upset with having the franchise tag placed on him, Briggs said he would never play another down for the Bears. He did. A year later, he signed that six-year contract. Now he doesn’t like that contract. This time, he might not want to get his hopes up for a new deal. Or he might want to change his name to Urlacher.

I'm no Rick Morrissey fan but he does make his point about Briggs very clear doesn't he? You're a great player Lance Briggs but you're not Brian Urlacher. "the face of the franchise" and like Mark Potash points out, it may not be fair but it is what it is like it or not.

I do disagree with what Potash had to say about not complaining about Forte being underpaid AND complaining about the Taylor and Manu signing. One has nothing to do with the other and it was a ridiculous comparison to make. The Briggs deal is different because he has a contract that runs through 2013, Matt Forte does not. As we all know Forte is up for an extension of his rookie deal and the mistakes that JA made with those two clowns has nothing to do with Matt Forte. The Bears have to take that one on the chin themselves.

However, I do agree with him about the idea of giving Briggs his 2013 money now and his 2011 money then. It's a small gesture that may solve a problem and we have the cap room to do it. It's may be pound foolish not to do it and make this problem go away at least until the offseason when it won't be such a distraction. It's not like Briggs isn't worth the money.

Look to trade him in the next 2 off-seasons.

Originally Posted by BULLITT

Look to trade him in the next 2 off-seasons.

The tipoff for that would be that they don't compromise with him on flipping his 2013 salary into 2011. No sense doing that if they plan to trade him after this season anyway. If JA sticks to his guns then Briggs really has no recourse at all. Like I said this is all about Rosenhaus wanting to engineer another pay me or trade me deal just like he did with Olsen. I wonder if Drew realizes just how transparent he is?