Tuesday’s 2-minute drill …
Seeing Rosevelt Colvin on Sunday in New England for the first time as a regular-season opponent will remind the Bears of good times and a bad decision.
It also should reinforce to the Bears how delicately they must deal with the team’s best play-making outside linebacker since Colvin left town in 2003–Lance Briggs.
Mishandle the Briggs’ situation and the Bears could regret for years watching a good, young player they drafted succeed elsewhere the way Colvin has in New England, where he owns two Super Bowl rings after three seasons.
Briggs and the Bears face the same high-stakes showdown at the end of this season that Colvin faced at the end of 2002. The Bears chose to let Colvin walk to free agency instead of locking him into a long-term deal. He happily signed a six-year, $25.9 million contract with the Patriots that included a $6 million signing bonus.
Bears general manager Jerry Angelo passed on the chance to lock Colvin into an affordable contract extension in 2001, when he extended deals to Jerry Azumah and Alfonso Boone. He also declined to apply the franchise tag to Colvin, a move that would have kept him for one year at a salary of the top five highest-paid linebackers in the league.
That might have been hard to justify financially in 2003, a year after the Bears paid dearly for bungling the Warrick Holdman “checked box” fiasco that forced them to overpay for Holdman at $12 million for four years. At that time they also were conserving funds to afford Brian Urlacher’s record $56.5 million contract extension later that summer and could not afford to allocate so much money to linebackers.
Maybe they still can’t. But since Colvin left, the Bears have learned a lot about the salary cap and shown more of an aggressive bent toward spending for the right player.
Like Briggs. Sticking an exclusive franchise tag on Briggs would occupy a significant portion of a salary cap–the average ’06 salary of the top five linebackers was $7.2 million–but the league’s cap could grow as high as $109 million next year. Not to mention how the Bears would be loathe to get rid of a player who could be coming off a season leading the team in tackles, a second straight Pro Bowl appearance and a Super Bowl title.
If the Bears win it all this year, Briggs, Urlacher and Hunter Hillenmeyer would leave a similar team legacy as the linebacker trios of Mike Singletary, Wilber Marshall and Otis Wilson and Bill George, Joe Fortunato and Larry Morris. What’s that worth?
It’s rich company in terms of franchise history. Either way, Briggs will get richer.
Agents tend not to like the franchise tag because signing bonuses in the open market bring bigger paydays. But the Bears still could negotiate a longer, more lucrative deal with Briggs’ agent, Drew Rosenhaus, even after they apply the franchise designation by the Feb. 22 deadline.
It’s a tricky decision for the Bears. Expensive long-term deals with more irreplaceable Bears such as Rex Grossman and Tommie Harris loom. There are cornerbacks to pay too.
Can they afford everybody? If not, the Bears can point to recent drafts to defend their decision to let Briggs go and replace him with a rookie. Briggs himself was the one who ultimately replaced Colvin four games into his first season.
When Briggs left the game briefly after Sunday’s first play against the Jets with an eye injury, 2005 seventh-round pick Rod Wilson replaced him.
So the Bears do have options. Waving goodbye to Briggs would be the riskiest one. …
The Bears still do owe Colvin a debt that has no price tag: He is the player responsible for making Urlacher an NFL middle linebacker. Motivated by the Bears’ handing Urlacher his starting strong-side linebacker’s job the day they drafted him in 2000, Colvin beat out the No. 1 pick in preseason and prompted Urlacher’s move to the middle. … Leon Joe is the only player on either the Bears’ or Patriots’ roster affected by the Ted Washington-to-New England trade before the ’03 season. The Bears received a 2004 fourth-round draft pick in return, which they dealt to the 49ers for a fourth- (Joe) and a fifth-round selection (Claude Harriott). Harriott, a defensive end, is on the Lions’ practice squad. … When was the last time you saw a linebacker as the “gunner” on punt coverage? Darrell McClover manned that spot Sunday against the Jets like somebody who had done so before. …
For some reason, special-teams coordinators seldom get mentioned as head-coaching candidates, but NFL GMs looking for a defensive coordinator or even a head coach would be wise to add Dave Toub’s name to their short lists. And–much to the Bears’ chagrin–his contract runs out at the end of this season so he’s a free agent. … Mark Bradley has two TDs in his first eight catches since returning from an ankle injury. Bernard Berrian started the season with two TDs in his first six. All told, the Bears’ No. 2 receiver position shared by “BerMark Berriadley” that created so much preseason hand-wringing has produced 36 receptions for 659 yards (18.3 per catch) and six TDs. … Bradley is averaging six points a game in New York. How long before Knicks GM Isiah Thomas calls to ask about a trade? … On first-and-goal on the 4, after three out of four previous running plays over the left side gained 36 yards, the Bears ran up the middle for 1 yard and over right tackle twice without scoring. Before the third-down run, center Olin Kreutz extended his arms, palms up, and appeared exasperated as he looked toward the sideline. A moment later, left guard Ruben Brown pounded his chest as if to say, “Come my way.” Asked afterward about the emotional display, Brown acknowledged, “You get a little frustrated, but you ride the wave.” Kreutz feigned ignorance. “I don’t remember that,” he said with a devilish grin.
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dhaugh@tribune.com
