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No deal by 4:00 means he must take the franchise tag deal or hold out. No negotiating long term deals after July 16th.

If a franchise player signs a multiyear contract with his current club between Feb. 22 and July 16, the club retains its franchise player designation for the following league year. After July 16, any contract signed by a franchise player can only be for one year.

http://www.nfl.com/freeagency/

Basically... today makes any hold out official. We saw this coming months ago.

I don't see him signing. I hope he does, but it looks doubtful.

425,000 a week, for 10 weeks. That's 4.2million to pout. And the bears can just tag him again next year. Briggs should take the deal on the table. 7.2m, play all year, and the bears won't tag him again next year.

I would bet dollars to donuts the bears tag him again next year if he sits out 10 games pouting just because they can, to show other players not to f with them.

That's the only reason briggs isn't a redskin right now.

No deal. Prepare for holdout.

I guess Rosenhaus was on NFL Live. (I didn't see it)

But it looks like Briggs will be in camp. Drew said he was determined to get him into camp.

He also said that he was working on a 1 year deal (for next year - after his tag year). But wasn't going to negotiate through the media.

Sounds like Angelo owned Drew pretty hard.

It would be nice to have Briggs for 2 more years.

Cliff Levingston still doesn't blame Angelo for not re-signing him long-term. For one, Briggs is somewhat overrated. Second, we already have a lot of money tied up in Urlacher, and with a hard cap, it's not a good idea to tie up a ton of money in the same position.

that's good news. Like I said, you don't throw away 4 million to pout.

Briggs isn't worth a huge deal for a team like the Bears. The job of the OLB's in their system is not difficult at all.

They attack on running plays to disrupt the RBs lanes. The DL obviously does that as well since that is all they do: attack. Then the OLB or the lineman either make a play because the offensive play is disrupted by the attacking players, or Urlacher is freed up to kill the RB.

On passing downs, the OLBs generally just drop into a short, sideline zone and keep everything in front of them. That is probably Briggs main asset because he's very quick and is a good open field tackler.

The OLBs never blitz. They almost never are asked to cover man to man. The OLB position for the Bears is one of the easiest in the league because of the front 4, Urlacher, and the scheme in general. It would be pretty stupid IMO for the Bears to overpay for him when an average to slightly above average LB could be effective in the role. My guess is Joe or Ayanbadejo would work.

[quote="Ayt"]Briggs isn't worth a huge deal for a team like the Bears. The job of the OLB's in their system is not difficult at all.

They attack on running plays to disrupt the RBs lanes. The DL obviously does that as well since that is all they do: attack. Then the OLB or the lineman either make a play because the offensive play is disrupted by the attacking players, or Urlacher is freed up to kill the RB.

On passing downs, the OLBs generally just drop into a short, sideline zone and keep everything in front of them. That is probably Briggs main asset because he's very quick and is a good open field tackler.

The OLBs never blitz. They almost never are asked to cover man to man. The OLB position for the Bears is one of the easiest in the league because of the front 4, Urlacher, and the scheme in general. It would be pretty stupid IMO for the Bears to overpay for him when an average to slightly above average LB could be effective in the role. My guess is Joe or Ayanbadejo would work.[/quote]

Absolutely agreed...ESPN idiots consider Briggs more valuable than Urlacher because he puts up bigger numbers. They're POV is that if you take away Briggs, Urlacher aint **** although it's the other way around. Taking away Briggs doesn't mean that those other 100+ tackles won't be taken up by someone else. Although I like Briggs and hope he sticks around, there is no reason why another athletic linebacker can't fill his shoes in our system.

The reason Briggs was so successful, besides those reasons mentioned above, is that running backs rarely got past ten yards. He was one the main reason RBs weren't able to get through the 5-10 yard range. Even on the other side, he ws consistently near the ball, like most of the Bears. The DL is sick and deep, but the LB corps take a hit with Briggs sitting out for all but the last six games of the season and the post-season games.