Full Court Press

Dude you are trippin'. No way the Bears mo' is slippin'. They are pissed and hungry. Thomas Jones and Lance Briggs are great teammates and will not be negative influences. I would bet on these two and thier pride.

Jones and Briggs are under contract and should act accordingly like professionals. If they hold out, it'll prove that they're selfish and that winning the superbowl takes second seat to their personal agendas.

Do they want to be the next Al Harris and Todd Bell, who held out over contract disputes during the '84-'85 season and missed out on the superbowl rings? Talk about regret!

Briggs and jones holding out ?Perhaps they should learn more about the team they are under contract to. Do the names Todd Bell and Al Harris ring a bell ?

I remember Todd Bell and Al Harris doing something similar.

Didn't work out to well for them, did it? Their careers never recovered.

Turns out that the system, as well as the talent around them had something to do with their success.

They also showed that they were horrible teammates, with an ill timed powerplay on a team on the cusp of great things.

Jones and Briggs are great players, but someone should give them a history lesson.

Jones is being foolish, he is under contract and Angelo will certainly take care of him to a reasonable degree. He may not be the "featured" back IF Benson steps up but he could finish his career in Chicago as a well paid, respected player. An opportunity the Bears gave him when he hadn't produced to the expected level!

on field and off field issues don't mix. if your under contract you strap it up and go play. there's nothing wrong yet so let's not make something out of nothing. disturbing though to think there is no viable backup to briggs, or urlacher for that matter. lovie seems to handle the situation well. if they aren't there, voluntary or not, the other guy is and gets all the attention. only makes sense.

Drew Rosenhaus, eh? How did that work out for his #1 client?

The Bears are in solid shape the real reason they're momentum is slipping is they played it safe in the draft and free agency when they had the chance to take that next step

These antics only serve to show Thomas Jones' true colors--after one admittedly-solid season, he wants a contract extension? It's fairly obvious Rosenhaus is getting hip-deep in his clients' ears for no particular reason. Sure, Jones had a great year last year--but even he seems to forget he was the primary offensive option who had the good fortune of the best offensive line in the league. Does he really think he's going to be able to duplicate his success, now that teams have had an entire offseason to prepare for him? Even with "Seven-Start" Grossman under center, the passing game will most likely pick up this year; that, combined with a healthy Cedric Benson and Adrian Peterson, points to less touches for T.J., who isn't getting any younger (and we all know how great the market is for aging running backs, particularly those still thought of as first-round busts).

Briggs' case is similar in logic (really, how effective does he think he can be when the other team isn't keeping their eyes on Brian Urlacher?) but different in that he has consistently contributed and might deserve some compensation for it.

As for how necessary they are--sorry, Roman, but as they say on "Around the Horn," I'm selling--while I certainly think the Bears have a shot at repeating last season's success, it's going to have to be through different means than last season (you can't score 15 points a game forever). We've already seen depth at running back, and the addition of Brendon Ayanbadejo fortified a linebacking corps that, with Urlacher and Hillenmeyer, already seems deep and solid enough. If the Bears don't succeed in the coming seasons, it won't have anything to do with the potential absence of Briggs or Jones. It's a shame they, or at least Rosenhaus, don't realize it.

I thought the workouts are voluntary. If they are then there is nothing wrong. Bell and Harris refused to go to trainig camp, not voluntary workouts.

The Bears front office is doing its usual thing: screwing up.

Their draft sucked.

Signing a DB that could well end up in jail was another brilliant move.

They have no depth at LB, question marks at DB and if Bradley doesn't come back healthy and play the way he started off last year, they are weak at receiver.

To pretend that management has done anything worth talking about to improve the team from last year is just silly.

So being "tough" with Jones and Briggs is just another typical stupid move.

I think we are in for a big surprise! Coach Smith's philosophy is about to come to fruition. This man is special and his ideas cutting edge. Wait, the league will realize it soon enough.
The whole is greater than the sum of it's parts!

Thomas Jones sees the writing on the wall, Drew Rosenhaus or not.
Lance... well, he can't afford to hold out, as he stands to lose a year towards free agency. Given Jerry Angelo's track record of recent years, my guess is that between Briggs and Rosenhaus, they simply want too much. How good of a teammate can this guy really be, if he's that selfish? Can anybody say, "Wilber Marshall"?
Look for Briggs to play another year, then he bolts via free agency. Jones may wind up as trade bait, since he's got (I think) 2 years left on his contract. The good news is that Cedric Benson is on the scene, and could be a long term star. Maybe.
... and if Jones holds out... well, he just may miss what I think will be a very good season.
VERY good.
Here's hoping they keep their heads screwed on straight...
... the NFC North is Chicago's to lose (which I don't think will happen), and a lot of people are giving them little credit again this year (Power Rankings), so they should turn some heads again this year.
They are as capable as any team in the NFC of reaching the Super Bowl this season.

Superbowls are won on defense! Of course the offense has to produce, keep the ball for long drives and keep the defense off of the field with a minimum number of turnovers. The Bears have exactly the type of offense that will accomplish these goals and produce points. The Bears also may now have special teams units that will produce more points and create more turnovers. This team is tough and will win it all. I am going to Vegas right now and posting some big money on the Bears!! The Bottom line is; if the other team does not score than they don't win and what could be sweeter about Bear football than a D that brutally and totally dominates. I am pleased with the Bears draft and the free agent help for the defensive backfield,DE,DT and LB areas, I am sure that Butkus, Singletary and the rest of the great Bears defenses are relishing in the year ahead.

Drew Rosenhaus is a disease to football. He ranks right up there with steroids and HGH to baseball. All three provide a false sense of reality within and without.

Bears "brilliant" GM Jerry Angelo should have seen this coming. The Bears can lose Thomas Jones and still be effective in the running game. However, when he tried to resign Lance Briggs, who wanted as much $$ as Urlacher, he should have kept that late first round pick and chosen a linebacker who could have filled that position after Briggs' final year. Another front office blunder by the Bears.

The last two seasons, the Bears didn't have a quarterback, at all. Yet, Thomas Jones makes the best of it. Walter Payton, in his prime, would have had a hard time doing any better than Jones has done the last two years. The Bears have had the worst passing imaginable. Year before last, Thomas Jones carried the Bears totally, but instead of the Bears looking for a quarterback, the draft a running back. Then last year, everyone talked about how Ortin managed the game. Managed what?? Handing the ball off was all he could do. Thomas Jones made the Bears the team that they were last year, on offense. It is a disgrace what they have done to him. From Lovie Smith's own mouth, Thomas is the first person in the gym and the last one out. No one works harder. Then they crap on him.

Thomas Jones needs to wait another year and then ask for more money, that is if he produces like he did last year. But he needs to think down the road that Cedric Benson is going the back of the future so he needs to mind his P's and Q's if he thinks he will get a good contract elsewhere. Lance Briggs is a good LB and he does deserve more money, but as much as a 5 time pro bowler in Urlacher never. The defenseive line, Urlacher, and Mike Brown make that defense, other people can be replaced.

I'll take Peterson over Jones all day long! My grandmother could have rolled right through that O-line without a scratch on her wheel chair. Briggs reminds me of Roosevelt Colvin without the speed. Briggs is solid but Urlacher makes all of our linebackers look solid. Briggs will leave next year and be just another solid but average linebacker in the league.

Thomas Jones and Lance Briggs are both valuble and needed members of the Chicago Bears. Like any team with talent on the rise, with success comes the desire to be compensated accordingly. I love the Bears and always will but Briggs and Jones are deserving of salary increases. Thomas Jones was the rock upon which the offense stood when the passing game did not produce and Lance Briggs along with Urlacher and whoever give us our most dominating linebacking corp since the Singletary,Wilson and Marshall group. Remember a dominating Wilber Marshall on the rise that we lost for nothing. Come on Bears, show the boys some love.

Guys everyone is forgetting about the supplemental draft including Briggs. Ahmad Brooks is available and if Briggs doesn't sign why shouldnt the Bears take a chance on the guy. Benson and Peterson can fill in for Jones and suddenly this doesn't seem so bad anymore. I'll admit I didn't like the draft but it looks to be working out, getting four 2nd year offensive players back from injury last year will boost the O, I like the pick up at full back and both of the undrafted tight ends could have realisticly been drafted if this year wasn't as deep as it was...Just maybe the coaching staff does have it all together...In Lovie I trust

Thomas Jones has a right to be upset. 1300 yards last year in an offense that stunk to high heaven and he gets the old "you'll have to earn your spot in camp routine." Furthermore, it's to a kid who hasn't proved anything other than he can run his mouth and get hurt. It's not necessarily about the money, if they told him he was the unquestioned starter, he'd be at the OTA's. Oh, I forgot, they did tell him he's the starter (wink, wink)!

I hope the top brass don't cave in to these idiots. They're still under contract and still gettin' their $Mil paycheck comes Fridays ain't it?

Look around the league, if every dude that had a great season last year holds out like LB & TJ, there wouldn't be anyone left is there? Honor your contract and play the games. Your inflated ego will destroy you, just look at T.Bell, and A.Harris if you need a hint.

Burst that T.O's ego, toe the lines, do your job, be a team, and show us some blings blings. Then count your $$$.

I find it interesting that so many people are saying that the Bears should show Briggs and Jones 'some love' or respect by giving them more money; these are probably the same people who are the first to scream in outrage when the Bears raise ticket prices because they do end up showing players more financial 'love'. The fact is, both Briggs and Jones have current, valid contracts and should honor them. If you contract w/ a painter to paint four bedrooms and after the first two he comes to you and says "I had fewer drops of paint on the dropcloth than ever before, so I want to renegotiate my contract for more money, since I've done such a great job" would you do it? Of course not. The same is true here. If players want to renegotiate contarcts after every good year, then they shouldn't sign multi-year deals. They should sign one year deals, suffer the consequences of bad years and give up the security that they so desperately want. They can't have it both ways.

The Bears have three fine Tailbacks. Peterson and Benson have the capacity to anchor the Bear's running game if Jones wants to leave. Trading Jones and in the process acquiring enough in return to sign Briggs to a long-term contract is in the Bear's best interest. Chicago has always built its team on defense and Briggs is an integral part of the league's best defense. Maintaining the league's number one defense must be the Bear's paramount priority.

Comparing Thomas Jones to Walter Payton is preposterous--Payton put up star-quality numbers every year, while Jones has had one (count it) genuinely solid season. Krause said it best; anyone could have succeeded with that O-line (look at Benson and Peterson). It's fairly obvious the O-line is the foundation of this offense; I still say Jones needs to put up for another year before he can start making demands. Even I'll admit drafting Cedric Benson made no sense, but he and Jones are different kinds of backs, so he shouldn't worry too much about being replaced.

It generally seems that Jones just doesn't want to be in Chicago in the first place.

All of this is telling about how annoyingly greedy professional athletes can be. How much more money do you need to make? The Bears were three games away from the super bowl this past year; what is more important to you? remember that Jones was a first-round pick; what happened to all his money that he needs so much more?

The situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

didnt two other players notalbly a linebacker miss the 85 season due to a contrct impasse?

Anyone want to take a guess on what we could get for Briggs and Jones in a trade? Not that I want them gone, just thinking it would be better than having them sit out.

Benson has yet to prove anything except that he is greedy, Thomas did what he needed to and should continue to do so, Briggs has an ego five times bigger than his abilities,,,he wants the same money as Urlacher???? That'd be like Orton demanding the same money as Peyton Manning! c-ya around Lance

making the playoffs and losing in the first round at home is mediocrity, not momentum. the goal is to win a super bowl! professional athletes put themselves through tremendous physical and mental stress to train and play. they should make as much money as they can get. they do not get paid if they do not play. the question is; did the Bears put themselves in a difficult position by giving Urlacher a very big contract? it ties up money for the outside linbackers and gives agents leverage to ask for more money when their clients put up comperable
numbers. Wilbur Marshall, Roosevelt Colvin, .....Lance Briggs? the guy in the middle can't do it all.

The Bears aren't going to the Super Bowl so the Todd Bell, Al Harris thing is void. The workouts were voluntary which means they had the option and shouldn't be questioned. I agree the draft was a big waste of time and effort. But understand every team goes through this and the Bears aren't any different. When you draft guys who are represented by Rosenhaus this is what you can expect. Just like you draft according to character, draft according to representation. MLB does it now.

When are these so called professional players going to realize they can't keep going to the well. I sure wish after a great year of teaching when all my students are promoted I could ask the school board for a raise or extension of my salary for the summer.

Although Briggs and Jones situations are different, both will be in camp on time, because in the end, the Bears hold all the cards!! Jones doesn't want to ride the pine behind Benson all year and Briggs cannot become a free agent if he's not active by game 6.

Drew Rosenhaus?!?!?! Who is this overblown wind bag? The solution is simple. If you signed a contract, you play for the agreement as signed. The team can't go back and say, hey this player sucks now, we are not paying him. How then can a player say, hey I want more money. You signed it, you play it.
One more thing. How in the heck did some clown like loud mouthed Drew Rosenhaus get so much clout. If the owners would do like Philly did in the T.O. case, players would stop listening to nonsense spewed by agents like Drew Rosenhaus who don't have a clue when it comes to honoring your word and contract. If they signed a contract and don't want to abide by it, sit them like they did T.O. Noone is above the game!

If it wasn't so pitiful, it would actually be pretty funny reading all the moronic bilge from Bears "fans" about how these players are greedy, about how they have "valid contracts, etc., etc, ad nauseum.

The fact that these idiots, in these days of outsourcing any good paying job that can be shipped overseas, still think that any business owner is the good guy in a labor dispute, is incredible.

I'm sure most of them are knowledgeable enough to be aware that, unlike baseball and basketball, the only guaranteed money in a NFL contract is the upfront bonus money.

The "valid" contracts that almost all NFL players have give the teams the right to dump them at a moment's notice with no severance pay.

This is a sport where the owners can charge an exorbitant "license fee" just to have the right to purchase your season tickets.

These fans, though still think that it is the owners that are being done wrong by the greedy players.

What a bunch of fools.

I can't believe all you Bears fans that don't have faith in this situation...primarily our offense. Ok, ok Thomas Jones had a great year, but you're blind if you don't think it was the offensive line that made it all happen. Case and point..Adrian Peterson. Just wait until the Bears have someone who doesn't overthrow and rush everything at QB. It should also help the running game even more! Thomas Jones is replaceable. Briggs on the other hand isn't, but defense isn't really a concern. Briggs stats are largely impacted by temas targeting blocks on Urlacher and Briggs will be an average linebacker in this league without Urlacher. Both Jones & Briggs should adhere to the contracts they signed. Besides Angelo holds the upper hand. Jones has two years and nobody wants him. Briggs has one, has to play this year or loses a year of free agency. Then we stick him with the franchise tag. Case closed. As for Vasher....play one more year son before going that direction. You were a 4th round pick.

Don't they teach the meaning of a contract in college? Personaly I'm tired of this attitude that having one or two good years should entitle one to get top money & a new contract. How would they like to have their contracts reduced when they have less productive years?

A lot has happened in the past few days.

First, to Tim Flynn--there's a BIG, BIG, BIG difference between the common worker's struggle and the life of a professional football player. Any professional football player. Even practice squad players make more money than, say, I do (I'm a college graduate who works for an "evil" corporation). So don't turn this into a "fight for the common worker" argument, because we're not talking about people making $25 grand a year with no signing bonus wanting to earn a living wage. Lance Briggs, Nathan Vasher, and Thomas Jones all make AT LEAST six figures a year (that's not including any bonuses); their jobs aren't going to be outsourced to India anytime soon. For that matter, it's not like any of these guys are doing this because they want the league minimum to be raised, or because they want better health care benefits, tuition reimbursement, domestic partner benefits, et al. Facts are facts; these men are upper-class (if not outright rich), and they don't care about the struggle between the worker vs. the corporation. Yeah, the Bears are a business (and professional football is big business), but it's not like Thomas Jones is a rocket scientist who, because of the diminished job market for rocket scientists, has to settle for playing professional football. He's a man, treated like a king for most of his life due to his ability to run with a football, who wants more money because of the one season he's been able to top 1,000 yards rushing.

To Karl: anyone who thinks professional athletes truly deserve the amount of money they get is a complete idiot. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that Lonnie Harrington has helped one dozen students on the path toward leading constructive, positive lives by actually interacting with them and enabling their development as humans. How can one possibly justify that Nathan Vasher, whose crowning career achievement is navigating 108 yards without being tackled or pushed out-of-bounds, deserves six figures a year while Lonnie does not? Not to minimize Vasher's achievement; I'll be the first to declare that sports are amazingly inspirational to watch, and that professional athletes represent the pinnacle of the ability to play said sports (and I was cheering like crazy when Nate took that famous run). But, really, anyone with a sense of logic (or a triple-digit i.q.) can look at the salaries for varying occupations and detect a disproportionate amount of money being given to people who contribute virtually nothing concrete to society save for a "worthwhile" spectacle. Corporate bigwigs, Wall-street charlatans, professional athletes and entertainment industry magicians get a bigger slice of the pie than everyone else COMBINED--I'm surprised Tim Flynn chose to overlook this fact in his screed against people who dare hold players accountable for their own greed.

Because it is greed, really--sure, the contracts players sign are severely skewed when it comes to the company's control over them--but, really, all companies are like that. If I can't or don't perform the tasks required of me at my job, or do them in an unsatisfactory manner compared to others, I could, quite possibly, lose my job. The problems with NFL owners are, in actuality, problems with the entire capitalist system. You can make changes here and there, but the system is always going to be the system; sure, capitalism provides us with some nice toys, but you can't take the toys and reject the system--that's just greed. People can wax until the end of time about how these players' contracts are so unfair--but you know what? They signed 'em. Why? Because they wanted the money. I'm not "hating on" people for wanting money--but seriously, y'all, J.D. Runnels' signing bonus alone is more than I'll make in three years. (Not saying anything about J.D.--he seems to be a hard worker who knows that, if he does his job, he stands a better chance of being fairly compensated). These guys aren't starving.

Even within the context of the NFL at large, these three players are completely full of it. As much as I love the Bears, and as much as I love Nathan Vasher and Lance Briggs--bring home that Lombardi trophy, fellas, and then you'll have some leverage.

Thomas Jones carried this team offensively last year. Lance Briggs had a very quiet phenominal year. What's wrong with them not being happy with the fact that they get not even an attempt for a contract re-negotiation in a leage where your career could be so short. Players are replaced so easily in the NFL that you have to make your money while your still marketable. These are voluntary workouts. These players arent bad-mouthing other players or yelling to the media how they are being miss-treated. I have to admit that I am a bit nervous if these players arent 100 percent happy by the first game. Urlacher needs Briggs and his ability to help stuff the run (arguably not Brian's strong point). Thomas Jones is a work horse who every time called upon gets the job done. He finally got a chance to prove himself this year and they have a golden opportunity to resign him at a discounted price before he has another big year. Jerry Angelo is banking on an unproven rookie to step in do the job that they already have filled? Why risk it at such a high profile position. Bottom line, sign them to their contract extensions, trade Benson if they have to. They have the cap room. None of the rookies drafted this year will make any impact.

Let's clear something up.

Darryl ehm makes some good points in commenting on my last post.

Unfortunately, he still seems to have a problem understanding the capitalist paradigm which, whether we like it or not, we live under.

First, in virtually any normal situation, whether we are talking about athletes or your average run-of-the-mill employee, you should be smart enough to understand that the edge is almost always with management, not the employee.

Second, let's use Jones as an