NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Brian Urlacher - who wouldn’t want a linebacker that looks like and plays like Urlacher!

Image details: Chicago Bears Mini-Camp served by picapp.com

Sometimes it is hard for us little people to understand contracts that go into the millions. As we live paycheck to paycheck, they just live and live it up. In fact it seems like most of the trouble that professional athletes get into is because they have two things you don’t, time and money.

Those of you that have seen John Salley on the Best Damn Sports Show may be interested in his feelings on the matter. John once said that it is all relative, that if another player is making more money or driving a better car, then your competitive instincts kick in and you want more money or a better car or maybe a better house.

John also said Dennis Rodman was the only real person in the league. All he wanted to do was play pinball and hang out. Dennis did not care who had what car or how many millions.

Brian Urlacher cares. He wants his contract reworked. Brian wants it enough to miss workouts.

Urlacher had attended mandatory three-day minicamp May 30-June 1 but had skipped voluntary drills and the team conditioning program due to dissatisfaction with his current $56 million contract.

source

The Bears have offered him a 1 year extension for 5 million bucks and another million a year depending on playing time through 2011. Your boss would offer the same thing if you ask him. Really, he would, but it would also be contingent on you playing pro football for the Bears!

At least Bears fans don’t have to think about Cedric Benson or Rex Grossman for a while.

Hey, why did Urlacher show up if he is so worried about his paltry 56 million dollar contract?

At last weekend’s fan convention, Bears president and CEO Ted Phillips said it helps a player to be at voluntary workouts if they want a new contract.

“You know, it’s not a written rule that we have, but I think to most teams — and we feel the same way — it makes sense,” Phillips said. “If you want us to engage in any kind of discussions, whether anything gets done or not, it makes sense that you’re here and showing your side of your obligation to the club.”

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NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.
Ok, Brian Urlacher showed up in the Chicago Bears camp.

Even though the Bears seem to have a problem signing linebackers every year now, it appears that Brian will at least show up at Mini-camp. Good idea with a daily fine of over 8K and a possible bonus loss of 5.7 million dollars while facing child support.

Though the ability of the Bears to recover that much money from Urlacher is debatable since under the CBA’s proration system the unearned portion of the signing bonus is at most $3.7 million, Urlacher has likely gotten enough exposure to the court system through his ugly child custody battle to realize that skipping out on a three-day practice session isn’t worth the potential price tag, whether the number is $3.7 million, $5.7 million, or something in between.

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Ran across a really funny story about Brian Urlacher concerning UFC fighting champion Bas Rutten. The story is in the YouTube.

First a little background about Bas Rutten.

Sebastiaan “Bas” Rutten (born February 24, 1965) is a Dutch mixed martial arts fighter and color commentator. He was a three time King of Pancrase, former Ultimate Fighting Championship Heavyweight Champion, and is a certified MTBN Thai Boxing instructor, Pancrase instructor, and has a 5th Degree Black Belt in Kyokushin karate and a 2nd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. He is also the founder of “The Bas Rutten System” and the author of various martial art books and videos. He holds notable wins over Frank Shamrock, Masakatsu Funaki, Kevin Randleman, Guy Mezger and Tsuyoshi Kohsaka.

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This story by Bas is almost too incredible to be true.

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Brian Urlacher wants more cash

Image details: Chicago Bears v Minnesota Vikings served by picapp.com

What is it about the Bears?

Do they just not like linebackers?

Or do they just not like to pay linebackers?

You remember the franchising of linebacker Lance Briggs and all the acrimony that went with it?

Now it is on to Brian Urlacher.

Brian Urlacher says his arthritic back feels great and his surgically repaired neck is fine. However, don’t expect Urlacher to get his mind right until the star middle linebacker’s contract dispute with the Chicago Bears is resolved.

On Monday Urlacher, who has stayed away from the Bears’ voluntary offseason workouts, told Yahoo! Sports he expected to boycott the team’s mandatory minicamp from May 30 to June 1 because of his dissatisfaction with management’s lax response to his requests for a raise.

source

The odd thing here is that Brian has 4 years left on his deal. Four years!

Urlacher, who has four years remaining on the nine-year, $56.5-million contract extension he signed in 2003, realizes that his stance is not a popular one. But the six-time Pro Bowl performer, who was the NFL’s defensive player of the year in 2005, believes he has outperformed his deal and is frustrated that he’s no longer the highest-paid player on his team. According to NFLPA documents, eight Bears earned more than he did last season.

“It’s easy for people to criticize me for wanting (a new deal), and I understand that it’s a contract and I signed it,” Urlacher said. “But this is the NFL, and if I’d signed it and I’d played like (expletive), they’d have cut me or tried to get me to take less. In my mind, there’s no difference. If they can ‘break’ a contract, I have a right to ask for more if I play well enough.

“When I signed my deal the salary cap was $75 million. It’s what, $116 million now? Things have changed.

It is hard to see the Bears relenting in this deal. The kind of message it sends is wrong. But relenting may not be changing something, throwing a bone to keep Brian happy. He is, after all, the center piece of their defense and it is their defense that took them to the Super Bowl a couple of years ago.

So Lance may be happy now, but Brian is not.

Look out Chicago Bears.

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With tonight’s Monday Night Football victory over the Bears, the Vikings and Adrian Peterson managed to wipe out 4 teams from the playoffs, including division rivals Chicago and Detroit.

It was the Vikings 5th victory in a row and it was ugly.

The final score was Vikings 20 and Bears 13.

Adrian Peterson had 20 carries for 78 yards and 2 touchdowns, in spite of Brian Urlacher being all over the field.

Peterson was coming off of one of his worst games, 3 yards against San Francisco. But he made up for it big time on one play late in the game.

Then in the fourth quarter, with Jackson sidelined temporarily by a cramp in his calf muscle, Peterson added another clip to his rookie highlight video.

On third-and-goal, after brushing backup Brooks Bollinger during a bad handoff, Peterson stutter-stepped to freeze Urlacher before darting left and scurrying over the goal line. Urlacher just shook his head, while Peterson hammed it up with teammates in the end zone. source

If you get a chance to see this play on Sports Center, it is unbelievable. He starts right and plants his foot and cuts sharp to his left, and then he drifts left for a few yards and then sort of ducks under a defender as he is pulling back to his right and then accelerates towards the left corner with a high stepping strut. It was awesome!

Did you know that Adrian is third in the league in rushing even though he has 62 less carries than the leader Willie Parker?

Hmm, at his average of 5.9 yards per carry times 62 carries, that works out to 365.8 more yards. He is only 39 yards behind! Don’t mean to play the woulda coulda with you, but it is just to exhibit the high level of play that Adrian is showing.

Who would have thought Vikings would win 5 in a row with a young quarterback and a rookie running back?

But then who would have thought Adrian Peterson would be so good?

The Vikings are poised to ride Adrian right into the playoffs!

NFL Football Fan Question When have you last seen a rookie this good?

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NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Ray Lewis chortles - They made my group number 1!

Hey, it is time to rank the linebackers, only we don’t have to do it because FootballOutsiders.com did it for us.

How about we get in the mood first.

Squibster will now perform his psychic act.

Here goes. –You have always dreamed of being a vicious 6′ 4″ 250 pound linebacker. A true animal waiting to destroy everything in your path.

You do not care about pain, in fact you love it!

You want to crush people, now! Grrrrrrrr. Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Lance Briggs is jumping at the chance to be a Redskin!

The rumors are flying all over the place.

Let’s start with the Redskins going for Lance Briggs, again. Yeah, yeah, we heard this one before and nothing happened, only this time it makes a little more sense.

Washington does not like to improve through the draft and they would get a proven player in exchange for their 6th pick and maybe something else.

Meanwhile Chicago cuts payroll, gets rid of an unhappy player, and gets the 6th pick in the draft.

Oh, and don’t forget Lance gets to be the man, which is something he would never get playing next to Brian Urlacher.

Shameless Squibster promotion - You can find your intrepid author on NFL - The Blitz for the April 25th show. My four minute slot is found about 7 minutes into the show. Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Brian without his hat

Least we forget.

Least we decide otherwise. Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Uh, Mom, They just signed another quarterback

You know, maybe it would be easier if they just swapped team nicknames instead of players.

There just seems to be so much player movement this year.

Lance Briggs and David Carr may or may not move, but the threat is there. Lance wanting to leave and David wanting to stay.

David Carr rumors

Now it looks like the Falcons, for whatever reason, Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Lance was happy when his head filled his giant helmet

Boy, do players despise the franchise tag. Once you get it, there is not much you can do, but accept it.

The Bears hung the franchise player tag on Lance Briggs and he is hot. (Squibster full disclosure - Lance Briggs was on my Fantasy Football team)

Lance has vowed to never play for the Bears again. He sees it as a slap in the face.

Lance Briggs wants a long term deal.

He is even willing… Read more

NFL Football at its best. NFL Football at its craziest.

Why does this happen? You think any teams would love to have Matt Leinart that passed up on him in last year’s draft? Hey, Matt Millen?

Now they are doing it to Brady Quinn.

Listen up folks, it takes a great quarterback.

Let’s see, Colts - great quarterback, Chargers - great young quarterback, Saints - great quarterback, Seahawks - great quarterback, Patriots - great quarterback, Ravens - great quarterback, Eagles - great quarterback and great backup quarterback.

And what about the Bears? Great, uhmm,… Read more