Washington
Well-known member
- Joined:
- Mar 22, 2016
- Posts:
- 3,841
- Liked Posts:
- 2,786
Yeah, I know we've had enough of this, but these are good questions and some answers.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/ct-spt-bears-roquan-smith-holdout-contract-20180809-story.html#nt=oft02a-1la1
Te contract stalemate between the Bears and rookie linebacker Roquan Smith is now deep into its fourth week while the team prepares to play the Bengals on Thursday night in the second of five exhibition games.
Smith, the eighth pick in April’s draft, has been separated from the team since minicamp in early June. There is no telling when the rookie’s agents at CAA Football and the Bears front office will hammer out the final details of a contract that will allow last year’s Butkus Award winner to get back on the field.
So what exactly should Bears fans know as this standoff continues? Here are a dozen key questions to sort through.
The Bears move home from Bourbonnais on Sunday and Smith still hasn’t signed. What exactly is the holdup?
It revolves around contract language addressing whether the Bears could attempt to reclaim some of Smith’s guaranteed money if he were suspended by the NFL for an on-field rules violation outside the parameters of a football play. That’s it in a nutshell.
How has the disagreement between the two sides evolved?
Initially, it centered on whether the Bears could attempt to reclaim Smith’s guaranteed money if he were suspended for an illegal hit with his helmet.
At some point during training camp, though — exactly when is unclear, but it’s believed to have been near the end of July — the Bears agreed to tailor language in Smith’s contract to protect his guaranteed money from being reclaimed in that scenario.
The Bears hoped that concession would prompt Smith to sign and report to camp. But Smith’s representatives dug in further, seeking financial protection for a broader range of on-field conduct outside the parameters of a football play, such as shoving an official or getting into a fight. The Bears, on the other hand, want to limit protections of Smith’s guaranteed money to violations involving football plays.
Smith’s representatives at CAA have not publicly commented on negotiations. General manager Ryan Pace last spoke about it to the Bears media corps on July 19, when he said: “We’re optimistic that he’s here soon.”
Are Smith’s requests for such broad protections unusual or unreasonable?
That depends on whom you ask. No one disputes that guaranteed money should be subject to forfeiture if a player commits a crime (i.e. domestic abuse) or violates the league’s drug policies. But opinions differ when it comes to on-field, in-game discipline.
Seven other teams have executed contracts that include clauses protecting a first-round draft pick’s guaranteed money if he is suspended for an illegal hit. Only four of 32 teams have executed contracts with the broader behavioral protections that Smith seeks, one source said.
Smith has nothing in his background to suggest he’ll be ever be suspended for any misconduct. So why are his agents insisting upon these provisions for him specifically? And why would the Bears dig in to protect themselves against such an improbable scenario?
This is where the impasse goes beyond Roquan Smith and involves precedent for future contracts.
Smith’s agents aren’t just fighting to protect every dime Smith can earn. They’re also fighting for their future business. They want to be able to hold up Smith’s contract in recruiting meetings and show draft prospects how they scrap and claw for their clients. They want to negotiate with other teams and say that because the Bears agreed to these protections, they’re the new standard.
Meanwhile, the Bears aren’t worried that Smith will be a behavior problem on or off the field. To them, this is about the principle of having leeway to assess punitive damages for a rules violation outside the parameters of a football play. They’d rather not sacrifice that authority. For any player.
Why is Smith the only unsigned draft pick, though? Why didn’t CAA or other agencies pick this battle with other teams?
That’s hard to say. Most teams signed their first-rounders without including such broad behavioral protection language in their contracts. Smith’s agents probably will never publicly say why they targeted this negotiation with the Bears to advance their cause, but it’s possible to see how they would have identified this situation as one they could ultimately win.
The Bears are 14-34 in general manager Ryan Pace’s three seasons. They also have a new coach. Both factors add to the urgency to start the 2018 season well. After seven straight seasons without a playoff berth, the fan base is starved for success. CAA understands leverage, and perhaps they sensed from the beginning that they could outlast the Bears in this staring contest.
Circling back to the new rule prohibiting a player from initiating contact with his helmet against an opponent, how is that factoring into the impasse?
It seemed to be a significant factor initially, but then the dynamics evolved when the Bears agreed to CAA’s request for contract language that protects Smith's guaranteed money if he were suspended for an illegal hit with his helmet.
Understand, though, that there’s a distinction between illegal tackles that draw a 15-yard unnecessary-roughness penalty under the new rule and more egregious helmet blows that merit a suspension.
For a player to be ejected and/or suspended for an illegal hit, he must do more than initiate contact with his helmet. He must lower his head to establish a linear body posture before initiating contact with his helmet; he must take an unobstructed path to his opponent, and the contact must be avoidable. (Think Danny Trevathan’s shot on Packers receiver Davante Adams last fall.)
The NFL reviewed 40,000 plays from last season and found only three that met the criteria for ejection/suspension. That’s 0.0075 percent.
Still, there’s significant uncertainty and anxiety leaguewide about how the new helmet rule will be officiated. Smith’s agents want him to be able to pursue the ball with abandon and physicality without any worry about disciplinary action that could result from an unintentional illegal hit.
The Bears saw merit in that and have been willing to meet that request. After all, they did not try to reclaim any of Trevathan’s guaranteed money last season after he was suspended for his illegal hit. The Bears determined that was a normal football play and didn’t want to punish Trevathan for playing aggressively.
Ultimately, couldn’t Smith put an end to this bickering?
In an ideal world, yes, one would think that a player would be in full control of his own career. In an ideal world, if Smith truly didn’t believe the contract provisions his agents are requesting were worth fighting tooth and nail for, he’d put his foot down, tell his camp to reach a compromise and be back on the practice field ASAP. But it’s more complicated than that.
Smith turned 21 in April. He’s a young man making a complicated transition from the protective bubble of college football to the business minefield of the NFL. Smith has put his trust in his agents at CAA with a belief that they will do right by him.
Still, talk to enough front-office executives over the years and consistent themes become apparent. Oftentimes, contract conflicts aren’t about that specific player at all. Instead, as previously noted, they are about an agency finding ways to recruit next year’s clients and setting precedents to create leverage on future deals. When an agency decides a big-picture principle is worth fighting for, they sometimes use their powers of persuasion to convince a player or two to stand behind them to the end. No matter what. It’s quite possible that’s at the root of this issue.
So when does this end and how?
The Bears’ bus to Green Bay will depart from Halas Hall on Sept. 8. Let the regular season begin. It’s in the best interest of all sides that Smith is on that bus and in position to play. So work backward from there.
Ideally, the Bears would have wanted Smith to play two or three exhibition games. Now, they might be lucky if he’s able to play in even one. (Circle the Aug. 25 game at Soldier Field against the Chiefs as the next big date.) To play in that game, even for a series or two, Smith would likely need to be signed and at practice no later than Aug. 20. That should elevate the urgency for both sides over the next week and a half. But there’s no promise that will spark a resolution.
Remember, two years ago, Chargers pass rusher Joey Bosa — also represented by CAA — didn’t sign his rookie deal until Aug. 29 and didn’t play in the preseason. He then suffered a hamstring injury that forced him to miss his first four games as well.
As for how Smith’s standoff ends? It’s difficult to say with both sides still dug in.
Is it possible Smith misses all of 2018?
No. No way.
That’s a Chicken Little overreaction to a confusing situation. Think about it this way. The 2018 weekly game checks will start coming right after Labor Day as Week 1 arrives. For all the July and August quibbling going on, no player in his right mind would let a bit of fine-print contract language interfere with his ability to collect bigger chunks of his money.
Last year’s No. 8 pick, Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey, made approximately $3.1 million as a rookie with his base salary and signing bonus combined. Forfeiting that pay to fight for a cause that could — maybe, perhaps, potentially — help protect a few hundred thousand dollars in a hard-to-imagine hypothetical situation would be unprecedented.
Furthermore, it would be outrageous for Pace and chief contract negotiator Joey Laine to fight so hard for fine-print contract language that they’d allow a top-10 pick to miss a whole year. The public relations fallout alone would be mammoth.
What’s the impact of all this on Smith’s development as a player?
Had Smith missed a few days of training camp, no big deal. A week or two? Minor setback. This, however, is now well beyond that with the Bears having completed 12 practices in Bourbonnais. Smith has missed out on that on-field learning as well as the countless hours in meetings that would also catalyze his growth. Now, he’s also missing exhibition game action that would ease his orientation into the fast-moving world of NFL football.
Will any of this dramatically impede his path to enjoying a lengthy and productive career with the Bears? Probably not. But this holdout will no doubt delay the young linebacker’s ability to make a significant impact for the 2018 Bears. Especially early on. So in that regard, it’s noteworthy.
How has this holdout affected the Bears team?
Matt Nagy continues to emphasize that his coaches and players are operating with tunnel vision. “I just want to focus on who’s here and that’s all,” Nagy said Tuesday.
Still, there seems to be a small sense of annoyance that this melodrama has become a lingering issue. Bears players haven’t expressed any outward agitation with Smith with many acknowledging the business dynamics at play. And it’s unlikely that Smith will face any significant animosity when he finally rejoins his teammates. But the rookie will certainly need to prove that he can play catch-up. And everyone in the organization is counting on Smith to earn a starting role as soon as possible and to then become a key playmaker within an already established defense that’s looking to take its next big step.
So what happens when Smith returns?
First and foremost, he will have to get into football shape as quickly as possible and sidestep any injuries that would heighten the frustration over his absence. From there, he’ll have to prove he can be everything the Bears thought he could be when they drafted him in April.
Still, even if Smith is welcomed into the locker room with open arms, he should understand the questions he’ll face from the outside. At least a small segment of the fan base has already written him off as selfish for allowing this contract issue to drag out. The most hyper-reactive critics will see this as another strike against the young linebacker.
Don’t forget, Smith’s arrival at rookie camp this spring came with an apologetic opening statement after his team-issued iPad — which included the Bears’ playbook — was stolen when his car was burglarized in Athens, Ga., the weekend after the draft.
Whether it’s fair or not for Smith to be under such intense scrutiny and pressure to prove himself doesn’t really matter. This is life in the NFL fishbowl, life in a major market, life in a city that has repeatedly had its hopes demolished this decade. The feel-good vibes that were everywhere when Smith was drafted have been replaced by anxiety and frustration. Ultimately, only one person can change that.
rcampbell@chicagotribune.com
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/football/bears/ct-spt-bears-roquan-smith-holdout-contract-20180809-story.html#nt=oft02a-1la1
Te contract stalemate between the Bears and rookie linebacker Roquan Smith is now deep into its fourth week while the team prepares to play the Bengals on Thursday night in the second of five exhibition games.
Smith, the eighth pick in April’s draft, has been separated from the team since minicamp in early June. There is no telling when the rookie’s agents at CAA Football and the Bears front office will hammer out the final details of a contract that will allow last year’s Butkus Award winner to get back on the field.
So what exactly should Bears fans know as this standoff continues? Here are a dozen key questions to sort through.
The Bears move home from Bourbonnais on Sunday and Smith still hasn’t signed. What exactly is the holdup?
It revolves around contract language addressing whether the Bears could attempt to reclaim some of Smith’s guaranteed money if he were suspended by the NFL for an on-field rules violation outside the parameters of a football play. That’s it in a nutshell.
How has the disagreement between the two sides evolved?
Initially, it centered on whether the Bears could attempt to reclaim Smith’s guaranteed money if he were suspended for an illegal hit with his helmet.
At some point during training camp, though — exactly when is unclear, but it’s believed to have been near the end of July — the Bears agreed to tailor language in Smith’s contract to protect his guaranteed money from being reclaimed in that scenario.
The Bears hoped that concession would prompt Smith to sign and report to camp. But Smith’s representatives dug in further, seeking financial protection for a broader range of on-field conduct outside the parameters of a football play, such as shoving an official or getting into a fight. The Bears, on the other hand, want to limit protections of Smith’s guaranteed money to violations involving football plays.
Smith’s representatives at CAA have not publicly commented on negotiations. General manager Ryan Pace last spoke about it to the Bears media corps on July 19, when he said: “We’re optimistic that he’s here soon.”
Are Smith’s requests for such broad protections unusual or unreasonable?
That depends on whom you ask. No one disputes that guaranteed money should be subject to forfeiture if a player commits a crime (i.e. domestic abuse) or violates the league’s drug policies. But opinions differ when it comes to on-field, in-game discipline.
Seven other teams have executed contracts that include clauses protecting a first-round draft pick’s guaranteed money if he is suspended for an illegal hit. Only four of 32 teams have executed contracts with the broader behavioral protections that Smith seeks, one source said.
Smith has nothing in his background to suggest he’ll be ever be suspended for any misconduct. So why are his agents insisting upon these provisions for him specifically? And why would the Bears dig in to protect themselves against such an improbable scenario?
This is where the impasse goes beyond Roquan Smith and involves precedent for future contracts.
Smith’s agents aren’t just fighting to protect every dime Smith can earn. They’re also fighting for their future business. They want to be able to hold up Smith’s contract in recruiting meetings and show draft prospects how they scrap and claw for their clients. They want to negotiate with other teams and say that because the Bears agreed to these protections, they’re the new standard.
Meanwhile, the Bears aren’t worried that Smith will be a behavior problem on or off the field. To them, this is about the principle of having leeway to assess punitive damages for a rules violation outside the parameters of a football play. They’d rather not sacrifice that authority. For any player.
Why is Smith the only unsigned draft pick, though? Why didn’t CAA or other agencies pick this battle with other teams?
That’s hard to say. Most teams signed their first-rounders without including such broad behavioral protection language in their contracts. Smith’s agents probably will never publicly say why they targeted this negotiation with the Bears to advance their cause, but it’s possible to see how they would have identified this situation as one they could ultimately win.
The Bears are 14-34 in general manager Ryan Pace’s three seasons. They also have a new coach. Both factors add to the urgency to start the 2018 season well. After seven straight seasons without a playoff berth, the fan base is starved for success. CAA understands leverage, and perhaps they sensed from the beginning that they could outlast the Bears in this staring contest.
Circling back to the new rule prohibiting a player from initiating contact with his helmet against an opponent, how is that factoring into the impasse?
It seemed to be a significant factor initially, but then the dynamics evolved when the Bears agreed to CAA’s request for contract language that protects Smith's guaranteed money if he were suspended for an illegal hit with his helmet.
Understand, though, that there’s a distinction between illegal tackles that draw a 15-yard unnecessary-roughness penalty under the new rule and more egregious helmet blows that merit a suspension.
For a player to be ejected and/or suspended for an illegal hit, he must do more than initiate contact with his helmet. He must lower his head to establish a linear body posture before initiating contact with his helmet; he must take an unobstructed path to his opponent, and the contact must be avoidable. (Think Danny Trevathan’s shot on Packers receiver Davante Adams last fall.)
The NFL reviewed 40,000 plays from last season and found only three that met the criteria for ejection/suspension. That’s 0.0075 percent.
Still, there’s significant uncertainty and anxiety leaguewide about how the new helmet rule will be officiated. Smith’s agents want him to be able to pursue the ball with abandon and physicality without any worry about disciplinary action that could result from an unintentional illegal hit.
The Bears saw merit in that and have been willing to meet that request. After all, they did not try to reclaim any of Trevathan’s guaranteed money last season after he was suspended for his illegal hit. The Bears determined that was a normal football play and didn’t want to punish Trevathan for playing aggressively.
Ultimately, couldn’t Smith put an end to this bickering?
In an ideal world, yes, one would think that a player would be in full control of his own career. In an ideal world, if Smith truly didn’t believe the contract provisions his agents are requesting were worth fighting tooth and nail for, he’d put his foot down, tell his camp to reach a compromise and be back on the practice field ASAP. But it’s more complicated than that.
Smith turned 21 in April. He’s a young man making a complicated transition from the protective bubble of college football to the business minefield of the NFL. Smith has put his trust in his agents at CAA with a belief that they will do right by him.
Still, talk to enough front-office executives over the years and consistent themes become apparent. Oftentimes, contract conflicts aren’t about that specific player at all. Instead, as previously noted, they are about an agency finding ways to recruit next year’s clients and setting precedents to create leverage on future deals. When an agency decides a big-picture principle is worth fighting for, they sometimes use their powers of persuasion to convince a player or two to stand behind them to the end. No matter what. It’s quite possible that’s at the root of this issue.
So when does this end and how?
The Bears’ bus to Green Bay will depart from Halas Hall on Sept. 8. Let the regular season begin. It’s in the best interest of all sides that Smith is on that bus and in position to play. So work backward from there.
Ideally, the Bears would have wanted Smith to play two or three exhibition games. Now, they might be lucky if he’s able to play in even one. (Circle the Aug. 25 game at Soldier Field against the Chiefs as the next big date.) To play in that game, even for a series or two, Smith would likely need to be signed and at practice no later than Aug. 20. That should elevate the urgency for both sides over the next week and a half. But there’s no promise that will spark a resolution.
Remember, two years ago, Chargers pass rusher Joey Bosa — also represented by CAA — didn’t sign his rookie deal until Aug. 29 and didn’t play in the preseason. He then suffered a hamstring injury that forced him to miss his first four games as well.
As for how Smith’s standoff ends? It’s difficult to say with both sides still dug in.
Is it possible Smith misses all of 2018?
No. No way.
That’s a Chicken Little overreaction to a confusing situation. Think about it this way. The 2018 weekly game checks will start coming right after Labor Day as Week 1 arrives. For all the July and August quibbling going on, no player in his right mind would let a bit of fine-print contract language interfere with his ability to collect bigger chunks of his money.
Last year’s No. 8 pick, Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey, made approximately $3.1 million as a rookie with his base salary and signing bonus combined. Forfeiting that pay to fight for a cause that could — maybe, perhaps, potentially — help protect a few hundred thousand dollars in a hard-to-imagine hypothetical situation would be unprecedented.
Furthermore, it would be outrageous for Pace and chief contract negotiator Joey Laine to fight so hard for fine-print contract language that they’d allow a top-10 pick to miss a whole year. The public relations fallout alone would be mammoth.
What’s the impact of all this on Smith’s development as a player?
Had Smith missed a few days of training camp, no big deal. A week or two? Minor setback. This, however, is now well beyond that with the Bears having completed 12 practices in Bourbonnais. Smith has missed out on that on-field learning as well as the countless hours in meetings that would also catalyze his growth. Now, he’s also missing exhibition game action that would ease his orientation into the fast-moving world of NFL football.
Will any of this dramatically impede his path to enjoying a lengthy and productive career with the Bears? Probably not. But this holdout will no doubt delay the young linebacker’s ability to make a significant impact for the 2018 Bears. Especially early on. So in that regard, it’s noteworthy.
How has this holdout affected the Bears team?
Matt Nagy continues to emphasize that his coaches and players are operating with tunnel vision. “I just want to focus on who’s here and that’s all,” Nagy said Tuesday.
Still, there seems to be a small sense of annoyance that this melodrama has become a lingering issue. Bears players haven’t expressed any outward agitation with Smith with many acknowledging the business dynamics at play. And it’s unlikely that Smith will face any significant animosity when he finally rejoins his teammates. But the rookie will certainly need to prove that he can play catch-up. And everyone in the organization is counting on Smith to earn a starting role as soon as possible and to then become a key playmaker within an already established defense that’s looking to take its next big step.
So what happens when Smith returns?
First and foremost, he will have to get into football shape as quickly as possible and sidestep any injuries that would heighten the frustration over his absence. From there, he’ll have to prove he can be everything the Bears thought he could be when they drafted him in April.
Still, even if Smith is welcomed into the locker room with open arms, he should understand the questions he’ll face from the outside. At least a small segment of the fan base has already written him off as selfish for allowing this contract issue to drag out. The most hyper-reactive critics will see this as another strike against the young linebacker.
Don’t forget, Smith’s arrival at rookie camp this spring came with an apologetic opening statement after his team-issued iPad — which included the Bears’ playbook — was stolen when his car was burglarized in Athens, Ga., the weekend after the draft.
Whether it’s fair or not for Smith to be under such intense scrutiny and pressure to prove himself doesn’t really matter. This is life in the NFL fishbowl, life in a major market, life in a city that has repeatedly had its hopes demolished this decade. The feel-good vibes that were everywhere when Smith was drafted have been replaced by anxiety and frustration. Ultimately, only one person can change that.
rcampbell@chicagotribune.com
