Lance Briggs Changes His Tune, Formally Requests the Chicago Bears Trade Him
Published by Timothy Hockemeyer on September 2, 2011
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
Lance Briggs stated earlier this week that he wanted a raise, not a trade. Now, the Chicago Tribune is reporting that Briggs’ agent, Drew Rosenhaus, filed a formal request to see a trade partner for Briggs services.
The Tribune reports that Briggs initially wanted to restructure his contract but changed his mind after meeting with Bears GM Jerry Angelo on Sunday.
What should the Bears do? They already lost fellow Rosenhaus client Greg Olsen to trade earlier this year. Before Briggs’ about-face, I would have argued that the Bears are $19.8 million under the salary cap and Briggs is definitely not being paid what his peers are, so the Bears should make sure he gets his new deal before the season plays out.
Now, things have changed.
This whole thing brings up two thoughts:
First, the Bears should force Briggs to play out his contract. Earlier this week, after the Sunday meeting with Angelo, the Tribune reported that Briggs was saying that he didn’t want to leave and that he was a Bear.
Now, he’s changed his mind.
Well, he signed a contract and now he wants to disrupt the team, flip-flopping repeatedly over his intentions. He even spoke of being the voice for guys like Chris Harris and Matt Forte, who have also outplayed their contracts.
What “voice for the voiceless” leaves when he doesn’t get what he wants? His actions wreak of selfishness rather than the selflessness that he tried to portray.
Force him to play or retire.
Second, it also brings up a question that surfaced earlier in the offseason. What would the locker-room mood be after Olin Kreutz left?
Well, Olsen either asked for a trade or didn’t, Forte threatened to sit out the preseason if he didn’t get a new deal and now Briggs is asking for a trade, spouting off about Forte and Harris, who himself tweeted that Kreutz’s departure wouldn’t sit well with the players.
Tommie Harris’ release reportedly didn’t sit well in the locker room, either, and players have spoken out privately—according to David Haugh of the Tribune in yet another article—about being unhappy with Danieal Manning’s treatment and exit as well as the way the Bears handled Chester Taylor and his looming departure.
All of this wreaks of poor player management and a problem with the team’s front office. Like it or not, Angelo seems to be losing the respect of, as well as the control over his players.
This feels an awful lot like 2007, when the Bears got to the Super Bowl the previous season, only to anger many on the team afterwards by not re-signing Ron Rivera and by the departure of popular locker-room players like Chris Harris, Todd Johnson, Ian Scott, Thomas Jones and Tank Johnson, whom the Bears released before getting the full story on his DUI-that-wasn’t.
If history is any indicator, this could be the beginning of a few bad years for Chicago, and if that’s the case, it might be time to reevaluate Jerry Angelo’s job security.
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