Briggs has no interest in a 3-4 defense(link)

[spacecrime]

If you are a big money player and not willing to play for near half of what you were making the previous years then forget about the Patriots,

What about the LB the Pats signed from the Bears? That Colvin guy? He got a fair contract.

But I agree, if you are a big money player, and maximum big money is what you want, then the Pats aren't the team for you. Neither are a few other teams.

But the Cardinals did offer Colvin more that we did. Colvin was smart enough to rather play for a winner than the Cardinals. I would think this applies to a lot of teams, though. If you can get $20 mil from the Colts or Eagles or Steelers or Patriots or other perennial playoff team, will you get an extra $5 mil of enjoyment losing a lot of games with the Cardinals, Lions or Raiders?

What the heck good it having millions if you would rather be somewhere else?

 

[ATippett56]

Hut: Briggs looks headed for a big payday

http://www.nwherald.com/articles/2006/11/15/sports/columnists/doc455afc58bee46143037846.txt

By Nick Hut

Lance Briggs is the life of the party under any circumstances, but these days he has more reason than ever to flash his wry smile.

The Bears’ success allows the spotlight to shine brightly on more of their players, including the voluble outside linebacker who enjoys the attention almost as much as he enjoys winning.

And Briggs, perhaps the NFL’s best bargain with a 2006 salary of $721,000, is on the verge of what teammate Brian Urlacher called “a nice little payoff.”

Briggs, represented by super-agent Drew Rosenhaus, turned down the Bears’ six-year, $33 million contract offer – which included $10 million up front – during the off-season.

Thus he gambled he would stay healthy in his contract year – avoiding the kind of serious injury that felled Tampa Bay quarterback Chris Simms, another free agent-to-be – and continue playing at a high level.

Both things have happened so far. Briggs has not missed a snap while making 73 tackles, showing why he and Urlacher are considered the NFL’s best linebacker duo.

Not only do they feed off one another’s energy and verve, Urlacher said, but each knows where the other is going to be on every play.

“It’s almost weird,” said Urlacher, who has a team-best 76 tackles.

Their reliance on one another allows both Urlacher and Briggs to take the kind of chances that can backfire, but that define a great defensive player when they work out.

“If I miss a tackle, I know he’s going to be there,” Briggs said. “It’s been a blessing for me to get to play with him these few years.”

Would Briggs be as big a star playing next to an average middle linebacker, rather than a perennial Pro Bowl selection and Defensive Player of the Year candidate? That is the question teams must answer when they decide how hard they want to pursue Briggs.

The consensus answer is the most obvious – Briggs would be good, just not as good.

Briggs: “Playing with a guy like that would make anybody better.”

Urlacher: “Hopefully I have [made him better]. He’s made me better, too, I know that.”

Bears linebackers coach Bob Babich: “Lance has the gifts – the athleticism, range, the instincts for the game – to do well in any circumstance. Whether [offenses] could do a better job scheming for him without Brian and some of our other guys around, that might be the biggest thing he would have to adjust to.”

If Briggs moves elsewhere next season, the onus would not only be on him to live up to a huge new contract. It also would be on Urlacher to demonstrate his true greatness by raising the level of play of, say, new starter Leon Joe.

The Bears could go after a linebacker in free agency or early in the draft, but the odds of finding another Briggs are slim.

“As a middle linebacker, you have the best chance to affect the play of your teammates around you,” NFL analyst and former general manager Charlie Casserly said. “That’s why [Urlacher] would be in a better position to make his teammates better then Briggs [would] as an outside linebacker on a new team.”

Briggs does not like to talk about his future while the Bears make a Super Bowl run, but he knows it is bright.

He is likely to make the Pro Bowl again this season and will be one of the few selections to hit unrestricted free agency next winter. The salary cap will rise from $102 million to $109 million, meaning numerous teams will have the funds to sign Briggs.

The seven-year, $54 million contract that Seattle gave Pro Bowl linebacker Julian Peterson this year might be just the starting point for Briggs’ negotiations.

The Bears do not want to pay that kind of money because it would be a higher annual salary than Urlacher’s. They could keep Briggs by applying the franchise-player tag, but they never have done that under general manager Jerry Angelo.

Thus the odds are at least 50-50 that Briggs will be with another team next season.

“This is a business,” Briggs said, “a business in which you’ve got to deliver. If you do that, if you play well and win games and you’re part of a great defense, then people will want you.”

– Nick Hut is a sportswriter for the Northwest Herald. He can be reached at [email protected].

 

[Keegs]

Briggs is getting ready to play in the Superbowl, anything that he said about his pending free agency would have gone over like a ton of bricks to his teammates at this time, he took the high road and tried his best to avoid the subject of his pending free agency.
What kind of a-hole would try and find his next job the week leading up to the Superbowl, instead on concentrating on the task at hand (I can think of one!).

That aside, Briggs is an outstanding talent that could easily fit into the Pats scheme, BB did have a LB named Taylor at one time, and he had a pretty good career under BB, so do not fall into the "system" rut.

GREAT POINT

if Briggs came out and said he's like to play for the Pats, there would be a handful of people crying on here about how we don't want him if he's thinking about his future and not about the big game. He would be considered selfish by this board and looked at as a "me first" type of guy.

 

[ATippett56]

LB Peterson cutting path for Briggs

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/football/bears/209333,CST-SPT-biggs14.article

January 14, 2007
BY BRAD BIGGS Staff Reporter

More than just another opponent, Julian Peterson is a role model for Lance Briggs. Peterson, the versatile weak-side linebacker for the Seattle Seahawks, cashed in last offseason with a seven-year, $54 million contract from the defending NFC champions, finally getting the long-term payday he had been seeking with the San Francisco 49ers.

It's no doubt a framework for Briggs' savvy agent, Drew Rosenhaus, as Briggs approaches free agency. Of course, Peterson is also a skilled pass rusher -- he leads the Seahawks with 10 sacks -- and that makes him more valuable.

That won't get in Rosenhaus' way as he eyeballs the $11.5 million signing bonus Peterson got with a reported $18 million guaranteed.

Those are just numbers, which is how teammates refer to these guys. Ask Brian Urlacher about the value of his buddy Briggs, who will go to his second consecutive Pro Bowl, and Urlacher starts rattling off digits -- two picks, four forced fumbles, one fumble recovery -- oh, yeah, 176 tackles.

''Ten sacks, an interception, a bunch of things,'' Seahawks middle linebacker Lofa Tatupu said when asked what Peterson had brought to the team. ''He's a targeted guy. The offense has to know where he is at all times. If they don't, it's going to show. Either he comes down and makes a sack or makes a big play to change the game.

''We enjoy having him, and I know our offense likes having him on our side as opposed to seeing him twice a year.''

The Bears are going to know where Peterson is. He's explosive with great range and can track down running backs as well as he can quarterbacks. And for as many uses as he had with the 49ers, he might be harder to defend with the Seahawks, who have some better players around him.

''He's a great athlete and can make a lot of plays that a lot of people can't,'' Bears quarterback Rex Grossman said. ''No doubt he is a special player that can do things that a weak-side linebacker normally can't.''

Here is one comparison Briggs doesn't want: Before Peterson struck it big as a Seahawk, he played for two seasons with the 49ers under the franchise tag. That's an F-word no locker room likes to hear. With the franchise tag comes a paycheck that is an average of the top five at the position in the league. This season, it would have been a little less than $7.2 million for a linebacker. That figure will climb to around $8 million for 2007, and the Bears will have plenty of room to absorb such a one-year hit.

General manager Jerry Angelo has been outspoken about his dislike for franchise and transition tags but always offers the following caveat: Every case is treated differently. Angelo likes to spend free-agent money on his own players, and that would mean investing in Briggs, 26. Don't think considerable thought hasn't been given already to the situation. The deadline to place a tag on a player is Feb. 22, less than six weeks away.

If the Bears believe their window of opportunity for winning remains open in '07 -- that glass still isn't half full -- they won't let Briggs leave for richer pastures if they can't do a long-term deal with Rosenhaus. It would fly in the face of the way Angelo has done business.

The new collective-bargaining agreement has given players some protection. They can be tagged for a maximum of three years, but the rub is that the third-year salary would be the average of the top five in the league, not at the player's specific position. That means it essentially would be the average of the top five quarterbacks' salaries from that year.

So the Bears can keep Briggs for up to two years, pay him a healthy amount of money and keep one of the stalwarts on their defense in place. He and Peterson are both worth watching as high-impact players. Their careers could soon have more in common than the fact they are both Pro Bowlers on the weak side.

Briggs, for one, won't be caught up in discussion of the future.

''This is the playoffs,'' he said. ''It separates the men from the boys, right here. You know what they say -- big-time players play big in big-time games. This is a big game.''