[CBFF] Briggs Has Met the Enemy and It Is Not Who He Thinks It Is

[mom2iancal]

Great article, Tom!!

teri

~A Morning  Without Coffee is Sleep~
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Shannon" <tshanno at gmail.com>
To: <post at chicagobearsfanforum.com>
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2007 8:38 AM
Subject: [CBFF] Briggs Has Met the Enemy and It Is Not Who He Thinks It Is


> http://bloggeddrain.typepad.com/cbff/2007/03/briggs_has_met_.html
>
>
>
> Briggs Has Met the Enemy and It Is Not Who He Thinks It Is
>
>
>
> By Tom Shannon
>
>
>
> So it would seem that Lance Briggs has a little problem, doesn't it?  And 
> it
> would seem that in his righteous anger that he has found an adversary who 
> is
> responsible for all of his woes in the Bears'  organization.  Briggs went
> public with a simple message this week.  He no longer feels that he can 
> play
> for a Bears organization that has betrayed him by putting a franchise tag 
> on
> him, thus restricting his ability to move in free agency.  But are the 
> Bears
> really the enemy here or is it something else that has conspired to put
> Briggs in this situation?
>
>
>
> First let's be clear about something.  Briggs really does have a problem.
> Yes, he's being "forced" to play for "only" 7 or so million dollars.  And
> yes, that money is guaranteed.  But despite what you may think, that isn't
> everything.  In a sport where every play could be the last you get to see
> for a long time, security comes not only in the form of any old guaranteed
> money but in the upfront kind of guaranteed money that comes as part of  a
> long term contract.  Teams are much less likely to give up on a player 
> after
> something like an injury when large amounts of that money is still 
> deferred
> over a number of years.  Releasing that player when this is the case means
> that the hit to the salary cap accelerates into one year and comes all in
> one blow.  Few teams can afford to do that often.  Unlike the deal with a
> franchise tag where Briggs gets big money and security for only one year, 
> a
> long term deal for Briggs probably means he'll be a player for the Bears 
> for
> at least three.
>
>
>
> However, unlike the normal situation here where the salary cap can be his
> friend, it is one of Brigg's biggest problems right now.  Ordinarily teams
> are hesitant to franchise players because, as stated above, all of the 
> money
> is guaranteed.  It can't be deferred over time and paying a player the
> average of the top five linebackers for one year in guaranteed money can
> cause huge cap headaches.  Not so this year.  The cap rose a huge amount
> this offseason due to a change in the recently negotiated collective
> bargaining agreement.  Teams can now use the franchise tag and they are
> doing so in larger numbers than they have in the past.
>
>
>
> But the cap changes don't really tell the whole story nor do they point to
> the real source of Briggs' problems, which is most certainly not the Bears
> organization.  General manager Jerry Angelo has made it quite clear in the
> past that he does not favor applying the franchise tag to players.  Angelo
> has acknowledged discomfort with the idea because of the unhappiness it
> causes the players.  And believe it or not, Angelo knows that it is in the
> team's best interest to keep Briggs to be happy, at least within reason.
> The best thing for everyone when a player and an organization disagree on
> the monetary value that player has to allow the player to hit the free
> market.  The player then finds his value and gives the home town team a 
> fair
> chance to match it.  He's happy because, even if his value wasn't as high 
> as
> he thought, he knows that he being paid the correct amount.
>
>
>
> This is the way it's supposed to work and, in an ideal world, the Bears 
> very
> likely would have put the transition tag on Briggs, not the franchise tag.
> This would allow Briggs to find his best deal and would give the Bears the
> opportunity to match.  Why didn't the Bears do this?
>
>
>
> Let's roll back the clock and consider the case of Steve Hutchinson.
> Hutchinson was generally acknowledged to be among the best, if not the 
> best,
> guard in the NFL last year.  He hit the free agent market and the Seattle
> Seahawks decided to put the transition tag on him, figuring that with the
> cap space they had available they would be able to match any offer that
> Hutchinson got.  Thus, once again, both parties would be happy.  But it
> didn't work this way.  The Minnesota Vikings made Hutchinson a tremendous
> offer, $49 million over 7 years.  It was an offer that no one else at the
> time was likely to make but even given the huge amount of money involved,
> the Seahawks likely would have matched it.  So the Vikings added a hitch.
> They would only make the offer if Hutchinson allowed them to put a "poison
> pill" clause in the contract.  Hutchinson would have to be the highest 
> paid
> player on the offensive line or the entire contract would become 
> guaranteed.
> There was no way the Seahawks could do this with Walter Jones at left 
> tackle
> on their line.  Hutchinson knew that full well but he also knew that no 
> one
> else was going to make him an offer that lucrative.  So despite the fact
> that he was relatively happy in Seattle and that he knew the Seahawks were
> going to have no chance of matching the offer, he grabbed the money and 
> ran.
> This was the first salvo in the famous "Poison Pill Bowl"
> (http://www.nfl.com/news/story/9737965) involving Minnesota wide receiver
> Nate Burleson.
>
>
>
> So what does all of this have to do with Briggs?  Poison pill contracts 
> like
> Hutchinson's have become a common way to do business in the NFL.  Players
> are taking the highest offer, accepting the poison pill clause, and going 
> to
> the bank with it knowing that they are not giving their old teams a chance
> to match it.  This is good for them but it's terrible for those following
> behind.  Despite the fact that Jerry Angelo would probably rather let 
> Briggs
> find out what he's worth on the market, he knows that it's very likely 
> that
> the contract offer that Briggs signs will be such that the Bears will have
> virtually no chance of keeping him.  The Bears can't afford to let that
> happen.
>
>
>
> And so here is where Briggs meets the real enemy.  It isn't just a Bears
> organization with whom he simply disagrees on his worth.  In truth, they 
> are
> the least to blame.  Their situation is also far from ideal.  They're 
> paying
> him a great deal of guaranteed money this year and they are allowing him 
> to
> eat up a great deal of cap space to do it, something they cannot be happy
> about.  If Briggs wants to know who are the real cause of his problems, he
> need only look around at his fellow players and their agents (including 
> his
> own).  It is their greed, fed by a few foolish NFL organizations, and not
> the Bears who have made it nearly impossible for him to get a fair long 
> term
> deal on the open market.
>
>
>
>
>
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