Monday, March 26, 2007

Sound of My Own Voice Tour Returns to Glazerville

Jay Glazer of FOX is reporting that a trade is in the works for Lance Briggs. Put it this way about my confidence in Glazer to be a news-breaker: I'm willing to push the extremely valuable previous post down a peg rather than edit my dismissal of Rosenhaus's big talk.

Can this really be happening? Who'd possibly be putting together the assumed irresponsible package that the Bears would be interested in? And which pink-shirted, white-panted NFL decision-maker would put his arm around Jay Glazer, touch manboobs, and slip the news into Jay's barren noggin?

Al Davis doesn't wear pink, baby. So it's got to be Daniel Snyder.

Drew Rosenhaus, the agent for Bears' disgruntled Pro Bowl linebacker Lance Briggs, told FOXSports.com that the Redskins informed him Monday that they would like to swing a deal that would send Washington's first-round pick, No. 6 overall, to Chicago for the Bears' first-rounder, No. 31, and Briggs.

OK, so Drew Rosenhaus called FOX and said they'd "like to swing a deal."

When asked about such an offer Redskins owner Dan Snyder confirmed to FOXSports.com that he in fact wanted to make the move and they were waiting to talk to Chicago.

If I were Glazer, I'd probably have used least 3 commas in there. If the Redskins make the phone call, the Bears shouldn't pause for commas either. If I were Jerry Angelo, I'm sure I'd be surprised to get an offer of this magnitude. Run to the window and cash out the Briggs ticket before the Redskins change their minds.

The #6 pick would put the Bears in Calvin Johnsonville, which I hear is the most exciting place to be right now. We can figure out who'll play linebacker later.

Earlier in the day, Rosenhaus ran some more threats past the Bears to try in put them into more of a trading mood. As we all know, Briggs and Rosenhaus very clearly stated that he will never ever play a snap for the Bears again. Since then, they must have done some reading about how things work in the real world.

"After 10 games, he'll come in," Rosenhaus said. "We're going to limit our injury risk as much as possible. That is the plan, come back and play the last six games of the season."

So now he's playing six more games for the Bears, and the playoffs, but then he'll absolutely never ever play another snap for the Bears, ever. The six games there represents the minimum effort for 2007 to count as his franchise-tag year. Just sitting out entirely and barely scraping by on Payday loans would mean the Bears could re-slap the franchise tag on for the first time, all over again.

And that's half the point. The Bears can tag Briggs again for $8.6 million for 2008, regardless of which plan he decides to run with this season. Beyond that, teams can franchise tag a player for a third year, but now the player is due the average of the top 5 salaries in the league, not just the position.

But whatever. The threat of Briggs sitting out 10 games shouldn't have the Bears losing sleep. If the rest of the scrubs in the NFC North aren't tremendously improved, and none of them has had a notable offseason, paying Briggs for only 6 games and heading straight into the playoffs might be a pretty cool hand. The McCaskeys would enjoy the extra walking around money, anyway.

Answer the phone, take the #6 pick, and ship Lance out so he can finally quit making an ass of himself and get on with being "The Man" for the first of many 5-11 seasons in the nation's humilation capital.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You think that's a great deal? #6 is no guarantee to get Cal Johnson. So let's put some other possible names to these numbers. Let's say the best player for the Beloved at #6 is OT Levi Brown. And Don Banks says #30 and #31 are WRs Ted Ginn and Bobby Meacham. (I'd LOVE if Dallas got Ginn, BTW, FWIW, ETC.)

You'd trade Briggs and Ginn for Levi Brown?

Even if they wanted to get to 6 so they could trade up and over the Buc to get Johnson, that's another pick they'd give up. So Briggs, Ginn, and maybe a 3rd rounder for Johnson? I wouldn't. And I love Johnson too.

Briggs for the #6, and if the Bear have to chip in a later pick, OK, but not the 31th.

dhort said...

Putting names to the numbers isn't a useful exercise to me, and not only because college football is unwatchably boring to me.

Is Ted Ginn the son of Black Flag founder Greg Ginn? All those guys on SST Records hated sports, so that kid sounds like a bust.

Calvin Johnson sounds like a winner, as does the 19-yo DT, the Amobi Okoye kid. The Joe Thomas OT has also been top 3 on some boards, along with the 2 QBs.

If they don't like the 6th player this year, trade for a top pick next year. I'm talking about the value of the pick regardless of the names.

And yes, I think it's a great deal, considering. Considering the Bears have said they have no plan to sign Briggs long-term. In your trades, Lance Briggs = 1 year of Lance Briggs, perhaps only 6 games.

Did you think it was a great deal when the Pirates traded Aramis Ramirez & Kenny Lofton for never-would-be Bobby Hill? Of course not, but they tried to get something for those guys before they walked.

Though I hate for the blood-sucking agent to get his way, the Bears have to be thinking about getting something of value at this point, and swapping 31 for 6 is very valuable.

If you believe in the draft chart, swapping from 31 to 6 is worth 1000 mushroom points, or being traded the #16 pick outright. Getting a first-rounder and giving up just the one season out of Briggs is a coup, especially considering that Lance has proven that he'll be tireless in making the season as big a trainwreck as possible.