FanHouse ChicagoBears

In case you hadn't noticed, sports these days are all about Goliath. In 2009, the Steelers, Lakers, North Carolina Tar Heels and now the Yankees have all won titles in their respective sports. Cinderella is yesterday's news. The teams that win these days are the teams that always win, and if you think that's boring, well, tough. You can kiss one of Derek Jeter's five World Series rings.

So with that in mind, we need to be really careful about overlooking the Dallas Cowboys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. All you ever hear about the Cowboys is what's wrong with them. Terrell Owens was a pain. Roy Williams is a loudmouth, too, and isn't good enough to replace T.O. Tony Romo's too concerned with his golf game and his high-wattage love life to ever attain his potential. The new stadium is ridiculous...

CINCINNATI -- If Cedric Benson were going to make this climb from the NFL scrap heap to the top of the rushing list, it only makes sense that he'd do it here, among the well-known collection of misfits and ne'er-do-wells that league observers and HBO subscribers know as the Bengals.

This is in many ways the perfect spot for someone like Benson, who was unwelcome in Chicago before he even arrived and who drank himself out of town without ever delivering on the promise that comes with being the No. 4 pick in the draft. Here by the muddy banks of the Ohio River, in the shadow of the creaky Roebling Bridge, a team that's had only two winning seasons in the past two decades is happy to make Benson feel at home.

---

---

If the NFL's owners and players can't negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement by March, then 2010 season will be played without a salary cap. This is not a desirable eventuality for either side, though there are certainly some individuals on each side who might have reason to think it is. Bears tight end Desmond Clark, who apparently has his own internet radio show, recently outlined the reason he thinks it'd be a bad idea.

Clark's comments (excerpt after the jump) raise an interesting issue, but it's not one the players' union can be very happy about him raising. Because by raising it, Clark is playing right into the hands of the NFL and its owners as they attempt to employ a divide-and-conquer strategy against the players in the upcoming CBA negotiations.

NEW YORK -- The whole thing, start to finish, from pick No. 1 to pick No. 256 (minus the 10-hour break overnight Saturday), took 15 hours and 15 minutes. The NFL Draft is a complex, sprawling monster of an event that defies instant synthesis even as it
demands it.

But demand it does, and so here we are, in the hours after South Carolina kicker Ryan Succop was crowned "Mr. Irrelevant" (in a bizarre pageant that found NFL employees boogieing on front of the stage to Donna Summer's "Last Dance"), trying to make it all make sense.

---

---

Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs, who got the franchise designation and wasn't too happy about it, told FOXSports.com's Jay Glazer that he'll never suit up for the Bears again.

"I am now prepared to sit out the year if the Bears don't trade me or release me," Briggs told FOXSports.com via cell phone Monday. "I've played my last snap for them. I'll never play another down for Chicago again."

Lance Briggs is not playing around.

I don't know if it's such a good idea to make a bold proclamation like that. It sort of leaves you nowhere to go. It's usually never a good idea to limit your own options.

Still, I understand his stance. He wants a long-term deal, and the way NFL contracts work, things are slanted very heavily into the favor of organizations. Threatening to not play at all is about the only course of action Lance Briggs has.

And not only that, it might make financial sense for him, too. Yes, he leaves $7.2 million on the table by not playing. But if he decides to play for that $7.2 mil and become a free agent in the off-season ... what happens if he goes that route, and gets hurt this season? Then, he gets his $7.2, and that's it. What if he has a down year, what if the Bears defense as a whole isn't very good? Long-term, there's a chance it could cost Lance Briggs a lot of money to play this year.

Bears coach Lovie Smith has signed a four-year contract extension through the 2011 season, alleviating what was becoming an acrimonious situation between the franchise and the coach who led it to the Super Bowl.

Financial terms weren't disclosed, but ESPN reported that he'll get $22 million over the life of the contract, for an average salary of $5.5 million a year. If true, that means he'll finally be paid like the elite coach that he is, although if it's a four-year extension through 2011, that would seem to indicate that he'll coach the 2007 season under his current contract, meaning he could spend one final year as the league's lowest-paid coach.

The team also extended the contract of general manager Jerry Angelo through the 2013 season. It seems a little odd that they'd give Angelo a longer contract than Smith, although it's common for general managers to have more job security but less money than coaches.

Smith's contract sounds like a fair deal all around. Smith gets the kind of money that makes him set for life no matter what else happens, while the Bears get one of the best coaches in the game for the next five years. It shouldn't have taken so long, and the Bears took something of a PR hit for dragging their feet on this, but Smith should be happy, the team should be happy, and Bears fans should be happy.

Previously at FanHouse:
Is Racism the Reason That the Bears Won't Pay Lovie Smith?
It's Mike McCaskey's Money, and Lovie Smith Can't Have It
Lovie Smith: Changes on Staff, No Change on Contract
How Underpaid Is Bears Coach Lovie Smith? Very Underpaid
Bears Won't Blink, Neither Will Lovie Smith

That's the question posed by Carol Slezak in today's Chicago Sun-Times. Lovie Smith, who was in consecutive years, the NFL's Coach of the Year, and then a Super Bowl participant, has a contract that will pay him less than any other coach in the league this year, and contract negotiations are going nowhere.

I don't know Bears president Ted Phillips, and I don't know Bears general manager Jerry Angelo. I wouldn't know who they were if they knocked on my door right now and asked me if I wanted to come over and watch Amistad. I don't know what hidden perceptions and prejudices they have ... I can't tell you if it's a subtle or not-so-subtle form of racism behind this.

I can tell you, though, that their unbelievable refusal to give Lovie Smith even an average contract makes the question absolutely justified.

As Slezak points out:

• Head coach Dick Juaron, after going 13-3 in 2001 with the Bears, had the last year of his contract torn up and was given a new deal doubling his original salary.

• Lovie Smith will enter the last year of his contract without a new deal, after winning the AP's Coach of the Year award in 2005, going 13-3 and to the Super Bowl in 2006. He is the lowest-paid coach in the NFL.

There's got to be some reason that they won't pay Lovie Smith. It can't be because he hasn't proven himself. Clearly, he has. You could point out that the Bears are notoriously cheap with everyone, but they weren't cheap with Dick Juaron. So what is it? And again, I'll stop short of actually alleging blatant racism here ... but there's enough to evidence to suggest that it isn't out of the question.

Also see:
Chicago Sun-Times / Smith talks make you wonder; Race appears to be factor in contract negotiations

Why do the Bears hate their coaches? ESPN's Chris Mortensen is reporting that contract talks between Lovie Smith and the Chicago Bears are going nowhere. Said Frank Bauer, Smith's agent:

"We're not close, we're not encouraged, and based on where talks have gone recently, Lovie will be a free agent after next season.

"It would take an unforseen breakthrough for this to get done. And we are being more than reasonable in this market."

What the hell, Bears? What does a coach have to do get paid in that organization? Lovie Smith could win the Super Bowl, trim the Bears salary cap number down to seventeen dollars and forty-five cents, personally impregnate the biggest and strongest women in the world to breed a new generation of genetically-superior Chicago Bears, melt down every bronze bust that's in the Hall of Fame that is not of a Chicago Bear, and then sculpt the molten bronze into a giant statue of Mike Ditka putting out the Chicago fire with his super-human stream of majestic urine, and place that statue in front of the new Soldier Field, which he built by himself, with his own bare hands, brick by brick ... and Lovie Smith still wouldn't get paid.

I'm really curious ... to whom to the Bears attribute last year's Super Bowl season? It wasn't Ron Rivera, because they let him walk. It wasn't Lovie Smith, because they won't pay him. It certainly can't be Rex Grossman, because he's Rex Grossman. Did Urlacher get there by himself?

Either the Bears attribute their recent success to someone or something that we don't know about, or they're just extremely cheap. Cheap seems more likely.