thanks for many memorable moments during your career and continuing the tradition of Great , Hall of Fame , Bears linebackers !!!! See you in Canton !!!
The WORST thing an NFL franchise can do is to thank a player for his past performance by now over-paying for his current performance. Once you start spending big dollars on veteran players who can't possibly perform at a level commensurate to their salary, you will set the franchise back. It happens a lot with teams trying to make "one more run" by keeping aged/injury prone players on the roster. It is a recipe for failure.
The good franchises would rather release a player a year early than be burdened with an out of line contract. They do not get emotional in their decision process. It's why fans would make lousy GM's.
Now can Urlacher still contribute? Of course. But at what price? It's not like a HOF talent like Urlacher is all of sudden going to play for a veteran's minimum. He would want to be paid at a "HOF" level and frankly it would be extremely poor business by the Bears to do so. Urlacher prob. realized that the Bears were not alone in their thinking (i.e. none of the other 31 teams would pay him either) so he retired.
As a Steeler fan, I loved what Hines Ward brought to the team. But last year, the Steelers made the same tough decision on him that the Bears faced with Urlacher. Hines saw the same proverbial writing on the wall (he wasn't going to get the contract he felt he deserved based on his past pedigree.) Thus, he retired as well.
Think of all the greats in the twilights of their careers that were put out to pasture like an old horse to the glue factory. Sports is huge money, and loyalty is nothing. That's one reason college sports are so popular.
Money talks. If Urlacher had a lot left, trust me, some other team would have offered him a contract which would have been satisfactory to him. He would NEVER have retired and instead taken the millions in the blink of an eye. Don't think for one second, Urlacher has ANY loyalty to the Bears (i.e. if I can't play for the Bears, then I'm retiring). Players want to be paid. If their team won't pay him but some other team will, they are off to that next team in an instant.
Your a fan of Urlacher's so you are getting emotional (That's what fans are supposed to do). But from a business standpoint you have to be realistic. The Bears have NOT mistreated him. They have paid him millions and millions of dollars. But you can't continue to pay on past performance; you have to pay on current performance. Brian Urlacher is simply not the same player he once was. He no longer deserves to be paid at an elite level. The Steelers made the same decision this year with James Harrison. They would have loved to have him back, but it was going to be on their terms and at their price. The only difference is that Harrison found another team (the Bengals) willing to pay him.
Say what you want, but the guy is a future HOF, one of the greatest LB to ever play the game.
Getting emotional??? Hahaha over what the Bears refused to give him another contract, I'm my opinion they're a GARBAGE organization. They also fired Lovie smith a coach with a 10-6 record.
Lets see how the Bears defense look next year without Urlacher, more importantly lets see what their record is.
and the Bears have made a lot of mistakes over the years , especially when Mike McCaskey dis-mantled the team after the '85 Super Bowl BUT Lovie had his chance , the Bears had great starts to the last 2 seasons and then FOLDED .. that has to be on the coach , never made the half time adjustments the opponents did , his coaching was one of the reasons they lost the 2006 SB Don't think he utilized Hester properly the last 2 -3 seasons He had his chance . Don't think he was picked up despite a lot of head coach positions being available ... just my opinion
had more to do with the Bears not willing to re-sign him at $$$ , he just could not cover sideline to sideline , or stop the run which made him the HOF 'er Thanks for all the comments
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