There probably is not a current Bears player with a closer attachment to Brett Favre than Brian Urlacher. Few players have been around as long as Urlacher and the two have long held great respect for one another. Urlacher, as you can imagine anyone signing an $18 million, one-year extension, was in a chipper mood when he arrived tonight. Urlacher said he feels great and was grateful he could reach a resolution with the club on his bid for a new deal.
Among the things Urlacher discussed was Favre's situation, and his hope that No. 4 suits up for someone this season:
With Brian Urlacher agreeing to a reworked contract on Monday, the eve of training camp, all that's left to do for the Bears is sign first-round draft pick Chris Williams. It's expected Williams will be in camp on time, but there was never a guarantee things would be done for Urlacher.
By agreeing to terms with the face of the franchise on an $18 million, one-year extension, the Bears have taken a large step toward trying to build some harmony in the locker room after negotiations that were ugly at times this offseason. Urlacher will receive a $6 million signing bonus and has his base salary bumped up by $1 million each of the next four seasons. The $1 million bumps are not contingent on play time, which is how the club's original offer was structured.
Brian Urlacher will take part in the mandatory Bears’ minicamp this weekend after all.
The middle linebacker, according to an Internet report, will show up at Halas Hall after making strong statements suggesting he wouldn’t be seen earlier this month.
If Urlacher was going to find a resolution to his contract dispute, he wasn’t going to do it by staying away from the club. The Bears have a pretty straightforward policy of negotiating with players who are not present.
Brian Urlacher has said he needs to take a stand in his crusade for a new contract.
Barring an unforeseen breakthrough between the six-time Pro Bowl linebacker and the Bears, we’ll get a better idea what that new contract is worth to Urlacher come Friday when the mandatory minicamp opens at Halas Hall.
If Urlacher boycotts the event—as he told our pal Mike Silver at Yahoo! Sports he was likely to do earlier this month—he puts in jeopardy a portion of the $13 million signing bonus he received in 2003. Urlacher, who turned 30 Sunday and has skipped the voluntary offseason workout program to date, could risk losing money in his bid to earn more money.
At issue would be signing bonus forfeiture language in Urlacher’s contract, a standard part of virtually all NFL contracts. If he’s in default on his contract—and missing a mandatory team activity would qualify—the Bears could choose to pursue a pro-rated portion of that signing bonus. Just five years into the $56.65 million, nine-year contract, at stake would be $5,777,777 (the remaining pro-rated portion of the signing bonus).
Sometimes players will not be happy with their contracts.
That’s what general manager Jerry Angelo said Tuesday.
He didn’t need to address Brian Urlacher specifically to get his point across when discussing the team’s goal of rewarding its own, including defensive tackle Tommie Harris, returner Devin Hester and kicker Robbie Gould.
``It is what it is,’’ Angelo said. ``Players have feelings. You’re not going to have one big happy family, it just doesn’t happen that way.’’
Here is a look at the Brian Urlacher contract numbers so you can boil the situation down to the dollars and cents because no matter what is said ... it is all about the money.
Urlacher currently has four years remaining on the $56.65 million, nine-year contract he signed in 2003. That extension came with two years remaining on his rookie contract.
There is $22.4 million remaining to be paid in base salary. He’s passing on a minor workout bonus of $50,000 by skipping the voluntary workout program.
If the agent said it, is it coming out of the client’s mouth?
Brian Urlacher’s good friend Jay Glazer (he attended the man’s wedding) chimed in on the latest turn of events in the middle linebacker’s bid for more dough Friday.
The Sun-Times is standing behind Mike Mulligan’s published report, and if you listen to Glazer’s report, he certainly leaves the window open that these tactics have, indeed, been a part of negotiations.
``He did say though, `Look, when my agents (Pay Dye Jr. and Bill Johnson) go and meet with the Bears, I’m sure they say things in negotiations,’’’ Glazer said, speaking about Urlacher. ``I don’t know what’s being said in there. And I don’t want to know everything that is being said in there. They fight it out with the Bears. The Bears, I’m sure they some things about me. I don’t want to know what they say about me half the time. That’s just negotiations. The one thing I do know is I’m not looking to retire.’
The momentum the Bears had around the combine when they whipped through contracts for quarterbacks Rex Grossman and Kyle Orton, defensive end Alex Brown and tight end Desmond Clark is gone. Long gone.
The man team president Ted Phillipscalled the “face” of the organization wants more money with four years remaining on his contract. It’s a delicate situation for middle linebacker Brian Urlacher, a former defensive player of the year award winner, made more awkward by the six-time Pro Bowler suggesting he could retire with neck and back ailments. Inside the Bears co-worker Mike Mulligandetails the entire situation.
Proving an injury would allow him to keep the $13 million in bonus money he collected after signing his nine-year, $56.65 million extension in 2003. It would prevent him from playing again too. His agents have also dropped the idea that he be allowed to explore a trade. Urlacher has stayed away from the voluntary offseason program which is two weeks old, and has made it known he is willing to pass on mandatory activities otherwise known as minicamp and training camp.
Wow. The mailbox is stuffed and I’ll start work soon to get as many questions answered as I can on Friday. No promises I can get through all of them as there is much draft news to hunt down.
Defensive tackle Tommie Harris was honored at Maryville Academy Tuesday afternoon at a luncheon in which he was given the Ed Block Courage Award. Harris showed up with coach Lovie Smith and a few teammates and owner Virginia McCaskey and team president Ted Phillips were also on hand.
Phillips got hit with some questions about linebacker Brian Urlacher, who is seeking more money. Urlacher had neck surgery this offseason and is coming off his first non-Pro Bowl season that was not shortened by injury. He has been absent from the first two days of the voluntary offseason program, which began Monday.
``You know what, he didn’t come to all the workouts last year either so we understand, he told Lovie,’’ Phillips said. ``Obviously, we’d like 100 percent participation and I think we’ve been spoiled over the years because we’ve gotten very close to that and sometimes it turns out that players don’t want to come for different reasons, we respect that. We’ll still try to get him here as soon as possible. Because he's a leader of our team, he's the face of our organization and we want him here.’’
He did not say if the surgery Brian Urlacher had on his neck last month was a contributing factor in the Bears’ decision to make a final contract push for the services of three-time Pro Bowl linebacker Lance Briggs, but Jerry Angelo became the first member of the organization to speak on the medical issue publicly through the team’s PR machine on chicagobears.com.
``We feel good about the prognosis and what the doctors have told us about Brian’s surgery and that he’s going to be 100 percent healthy,’’ Angelo said. ``He continues to go through the rehab process, which is going well. It’s a concern anytime a player has surgery. But we feel good that he’s going to be back and going. Nobody’s said anything to the contrary, and we’ll just go from there.’’
Ruben Brown has not talked to Brian Urlacher about the neck surgery the middle linebacker recently underwent.
He has heard it wasn’t as serious as the surgery Brown had on his neck midway through the 2004 season. That’s a good thing.
``Mine wasn’t a big deal, either,’’ Brown said Thursday. ``Mike Alstott had it done, a lot of guys had it done. I don’t know what Urlacher had, but it isn’t even similar to mine. Mine was a pretty serious fusion. His is way less, way less.’’
