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Does it make sense that just a few of days after Lance signs a moderate deal, Pace signs a huge one? I would've thought Briggs deal would be a bargaining chip for Pace's future employers. Does that mean had Briggs not gotten a mediocre deal that Pace would have gotten an even bigger one?

I'm not talking about last year, I'm talking two years ago whle he was still on his rookie contract. This is from USAToday: Briggs made $721,600 last year in the final season of his first NFL contract. Negotiations on a contract extension broke down last spring, and reports indicate Briggs rejected a six-year offer of more than $30 million. For an article written a year ago to reference "last Spring" means they're talking about two years ago. Also, I agree that now he has 7.2M in his pocket from last year maybe $$ isn't as pressing to him, but it's maybe also that after two years of this contract mess he's just tired of it and wants to play football. Good for him. And btw, that's a good observation about Tommie's reduced value due to the resurgence of the 3-4 defense.

Am I the only one thinking 6yrs for 36M can't be right? He rejected a 6yr 33M deal 2 years ago and since then he's made 2 pro bowls and salaries have gone up. I don't believe it yet...even if it is front ended. Nevertheless, whatever the actual contract amounts turn out to be, I want to point something out. How many times have we all heard "Briggs is gone" over the last 2 years (in the media and on the net)? 100? 200? Too many to count?? It's not that it bothers me that other people didn't think he'd stick around (or that JA would pony up), but that they spoke of it with such certainty...and so often. Well, guess what? WRONG! I never took the position that he would stay so this isn't an 'I told you so', it's just a little message that will hopefully provoke some of you into thinking twice the next time you're about to annoyingly state speculation as fact about whether a Bear will be leaving the team or not. Oh, and Briggs, you may have been a little misguided at times, but I'm excited to have you back. Injuries notwithstanding, we've got at least a couple more years of the Hilly, Briggs, Url trio. That's somethig worth watching on Sunday!

Yeah, I also look at big-lead games as an opportunity for an team to get better. For example, they have the ball on the 5 yard line about to score but don't get to try to put it in for 7 because that would hurt someone's feelings? Nah, not to me. You can practice the red zone all day, but nothing can replace what you get out of a real game situation. I guess if the other team has clearly given up, then it's different and then it's on them that you didn't play 4 quarters. To respond to one of your last posts, I never said it's not ok to be dissapointed that you didn't win the Super Bowl. The way I look at it, you're supposed to be happy with the goals you did achieve and unhappy with the ones you didn't. I'm not convinced spirit of what we're saying is exactly the same either, though it's closer than I originally thought. It seems the best example I could come up with is still only hypothetical...suggesting for example that the Bears are 14-0 and playing the Packers, who are sub-mediocre, in back-to-back games going into the last 2 games of the season. The Bears, with a 1st round bye and division lead secured, have nothing to gain from beating the Pack and in fact, might regress a tiny bit by playing them sincerely since they could regress into bad habits (such as with technique and fundamentals) that only work against poor teams. Yet, I would still be disappointed in them if they didn't place great importance on sweeping the Packers that year. This all assumes that the potential for injury isn't a factor. Also, for what it's worth, there's nothing mentally weak about telling yourself only the SB matters as long as you actually believe it. I don't, so it would be sort of like voluntarily brainwashing myself to think otherwise, which I would be too self-aware of to get any satisfaction out of it anyway. Though the truth is oftentimes I wish I had less of that quality, or at least that I could turn it off and on at will. Actually, maybe not being able to turn it "off" is the real mental weakness. I've never thought of it that way before. Oh, that's too deep

I was one of the few that still liked Eli even after he refused to play for the Chargers. It seemed like a silly decision after the Chargers got so good but I guess Eli got the last laugh.

You've got me convinced.

I was also thinking, at least I'm consistent, because I'm also one of those people that feels like if you don't want an NFL team to run the score up on you, stop them from getting into the end zone. I didn't typically mind Belichek running up the score, because the way I see it, the fans payed to see 4 quarters of football, not 2 or even 3 and a half. So for me, it really is about it being their job to care and their job to play 4 quarters of every game, etc. I will say, though, that putting in the second string, for example is ok. They're NFL players too, and I'd expect they'd put out a full effort especially since any playing time for them is another chance to impress the coaches and get some stats. Oh, and my opinion on running up the score doesn't hold for any other type of football that's non-pro like high school or college and whatever.

It true a goal (not the) is to win the Super Bowl. If you don't have any other goals, you're selling yourself short. If it wasn't a goal for Green Bay to beat the Bears or win their division (if hypothetically, it didn't increase their chances of getting to the Super Bowl), their fans should be dissapointed in them. I would feel duped and possibly angry at the Bears if they placed no significant importance on NFL week to week games that I get so worked up about...that fans spend so much money to see, making them millionaires. I've considered your point of view and I see where you're coming from. But having no perspective doesn't make them any more of winners in life than it did for Tom Brady, who just lost the Super Bowl and (he says) was still able to get some solace out of an AFC championship trophy. In my mind, if a player has to tell himself the Super Bowl is the only thing that makes any difference, it's mental weakness...like it's a crutch to make sure that he's properly focused and driven to the end, even though it's not reality. Of course, if it's absolutley necessary for that player, so be it. I remember back when the '07 Pats were going for 16-0 I would hear their players say the politically correct (so to speak) thing about how game 16 doesn't matter if they don't win the Super Bowl. And they were of course trying not to get too high about probably achieving something significant when they knew they still had another big goal on the horizon. ...as well as trying to keep the nerves down so they could play loose and not feel distracted. So it makes sense. But there was a part of me that really wanted one honest Pats player to come out and say it. "Hell YES! 16-0 matters to me. Let's get real here. Every damn year some team wins a Super Bowl...and no, we don't always remember who won years later. But a team only goes undefeated once every 40 years in the NFL. Are you kidding me?" Anyway, like I said. You or any other fan can feel that way, it's fine, but I wouldn't be happy to know the average Bear feels that way. It's their job to care deeply about every game.

It's all a statement of opinion, so nobody can be wrong or absolutley right, but my opinion is that the other games aren't meaningless. It does matter if you had a winning record, it does matter if you won your division, and it certainly does matter if you won your conference (which in the old days pre-merger would have meant winning your league). A person may think that the winner's attitude is to say that if you don't win the Super Bowl, none of the other games matter, but I'm not one of those people. In fact, any player who thinks the Super Bowl is all that matters can only be left thinking that all the other games are "warmups", and these guys get paid too much to be allowed to think like that. Fans can think whatever they want, of course.

To clarify, I was referring to Hester being "near(ly) the fastest" with an emphasis on the "near". It wasn't really important to my point whether or not Hester was #1 or #4, just that Welker doesn't even come close.

I don't understand what you guys are talking about...run stuffing DT's. We didn't pick up any run stuffing DT's at the end of the season when Urlacher started doing well again did we? None that got much playing time anyway.

Very interesting.

Maybe the Pats advatage from cheating wore out over the season as other teams had time to evolve new signals and gameplans. It's a question that has to be at least asked, becuase otherwise it certainly is a very large coincidence. I personally don't think so because I think the Pats main advantage by stealing signals and taping run-throughs would be to help out their defense, and the Super Bowl Pats had offensive, not defensive problems.

Welker's one of the quicker guys in the NFL (according to combine stats and my own observation) but he's nowhere near the fastest player in the NFL like Hester is, who is probably quicker than Welker to boot. So indeed, just imagine what Hester could do if given the same opportunities. But he needs to make some mental strides this offseason. Hopefully he'll stay healthy all next season and be another reason why Bears football is so exciting to watch.

Am I speaking heresy to say that I actually though it would be sweet if the Pack won the Super Bowl? I'd have been able to say (and I would have too) "I grant you the Packers were the NFL 2007 champions...but they still failed to prove they could beat the Bears. Spin their winning the Lombardi trophy any way you want. It only means they were the champs, it doesn't mean they could beat the Bears, who beat 'em both times. And that's fact, not some fan's deluded opinion." I gurantee you that would have bothered at least some of them for the rest of their lives ...that they couldn't beat the Bears in 2007 and how does that affect the value of their championship. Of course, they wouldn't be trading in their Super Bowl rings in anytime soon, lol, but that's only natural. Besides, Super Bowl winners tend to have trouble with player contract inflation under the salary cap. Anyway, that's all hypothetical.

Well I guess the '07 Pats made the answer easy for us. You don't get to talk about being better than the '85 Super Bowl champs if you can't even beat the '07 Giants in the big game. I have no idea what happened to the '07 Pats. It was a pretty huge fall from glory to go from where they were midseason to losing to Eli Manning in the end. I'm sure over the next weeks we'll hear all the pundits break the game down and give their opinions.

I think we have to take eras into account or else like you say, it's not an interestig argument. It's possible the 2007 Bears could've beat the 1985 Bears. Offenses, gameplans, and offseason work ethic are so much more developed these days. A rookie Regrigerator Perry wouldn't even be considered big these days. At the beginning of the year I would've said Patriots hands down. I'd never seen anything like it. 50-0 drubbings week after week and Belichek getting criticized for running up the score. But what happened? The Patriots looked anything but unbeatable during the playoffs. Didn't the Bears shutout everyteam they played in the playoffs (or some such nonesense) before going on to destroy the Pats in the second most lopsided SB win ever? Based on where the Pats are now (and accounting for different eras), there's no way you could go with the '07 Pats over the '85 Bears.

Good enough that even in an off season he can pile up the stats? Fair enough. But that's what makes them misleading since it was still an off season for him but the stats say it was his best. Ulracher's only 29. Though I guess Ray Lewis probably did start to decline at about 31 but even now he's still a great player, right? I think the arthritic back is the real issue and, yes, I agree it's weighing heavily on JA's mind. All we can do about his back is hope.

Just kidding. But really, if you need proof that stats can be very misleading, check this out. Look at Urlacher's stats. He had his best year statistically. http://www.nfl.com/players/brianurlacher/p...le?id=URL059326 In 8 seasons he's only had more tackles twice. Since his rookie season he's never had more than 6 sacks so 5 sacks this season is pretty good. Url had 5 picks, which is almost twice as many as he's ever had in a season before and blew away his old stats in terms of passes defended with 12, literally twice as many as he'd ever put up before. He also took a pick back to the house for the first time. If I was playing Madden, I'm sure I'd take 2007 Urlacher over all other years. But having actually seen him play on the field this year, I know this season wasn't one of his best. I do think his play near the end of the season helped out though. But it just really surprised me to see how good his 2007 stats actaully looked.