By Jim Coffman
Please, please, please let’s not hear any more talk about how the Bears overpaid for Julius Peppers, or for Chester Taylor for that matter. There is no overpaying in the NFL. Of course there isn’t a salary cap this year so any team can spend as much as it wants on talent. But even before that part of the most recent NFL collective bargaining agreement kicked in, virtually all NFL teams were in good position to spend plenty on free agents because they are all raking in ridiculous revenues.
Heading into last season, much was made of the Jacksonville Jaguars struggling to sell tickets. Then during the season, many of the telecasts of their home games were blacked out locally because they hadn’t sold out their stadium. The economy had taken a terrible toll on the fans in that portion of Florida, we were told, and the Jaguars were surely struggling to make ends meet.
Except they weren’t. In fact, it wasn’t even close. Jacksonville receives the same portion of the television rights pie that all the other NFL teams do and that speedily escalating payment is approaching $150 million per team per season. Teams can, of course, make more money by filling their stadium and attracting multiple local sponsors, but even if they don’t come close to maximizing those streams they are still doing fine.
No surprise then that when former Packer defensive end Aaron Kampman, thought to be the second-best pass rusher on the free agent market and therefore the second-most sought after individual talent, announced Sunday he had decided to sign a big-money new contract with a new team, it was with the supposedly cash-strapped Jaguars.
This state of affairs also makes it hard to take the early wrangling over a new collective bargaining agreement between NFL players and owners seriously. Knowledgeable NFL commentators have posited that there may very well be a lockout when the current agreement expires before the 2011 season. They point to the fact that there has been no progress in early negotiations between the two sides.
But there is never much progress early on in these sorts of back-and-forths. I know NFL owners are as greedy as all the other owners in all the other sports and that they are thinking at this point that they will definitely stick together and play hardball at the negotiating table next year, even instituting a lockout if need be. But the pressure from the public to sign a new deal and avoid a disruption of the schedule will be intense. No one is going to believe that the owners are even close to the sort of financial peril that would call for major givebacks from the players – absolutely no one.
Back to the Bears . . . I’m sure Peppers will be a significant upgrade for the Bears at his position. His signing obviously addressed the Bears’ number one defensive shortcoming. But No. 1A is safety, and if Jerry Angelo is even thinking about bargain-hunting or trying to find a major immediate contributor in the draft, we’re coming for him with a straitjacket.
He tried that last year, of course, and every time I think about it I still become even more pissed that the Bears passed on a pair of players who would have suited their needs perfectly. They passed on both Brian Dawkins, the former Eagle All-Pro who ended up energizing the Bronco defense (which, despite its late-season setbacks, was still much better than the previous year), and Darren Sharper. All Sharper did, of course, was spearhead the Saints defense’s charge to the Super Bowl. And we knew Sharper was still good; hell, when he wrapped up an epic run with the Packers a few years ago, he switched over to the Vikings. We have been watching him deliver big hits for a decade.
How could Angelo have thought that Al Afalava was the answer at safety going into last season? A sixth-round rookie at safety to start the season? Really? And sure enough, Bear safeties managed all of one takeaway, as a unit, all stinking season.
And finally . . . it was nice knowing you Greg Olsen. Yes, you led the Bears in receptions last year, but when you think about it, receiving tight ends who are sub-par blockers simply don’t make much sense. It would be surprising if you aren’t traded in the next few weeks. A tight end needs to be a blocker first. The guys who are receivers first should be much faster and much more elusive, i.e., they should possess the traits of a standard wide receiver, than Olsen will ever be.
New Bear tight end Brandon Manumaleuna will take care of the blocking first, especially in pass protection. Then he has good enough hands to give quarterback Jay Cutler a last-second option if all of his downfield routes are covered.
Hawk Tawk
There was plenty of criticism of the Hawks for standing pat at the trade deadline but seemingly very little clue among our town’s paid sports scribes (or broadcasters for that matter. but does anyone look to any of those guys for real sports news in this town?) about what possibilities were out there.
It is lame to criticize a team for not making a deal for an experienced goalie when you have no idea what deals might have been possible.
I’m guessing teams weren’t lining up to give the Hawks what could clearly be the final piece in a successful Stanley Cup playoff puzzle as well as giving them salary cap relief in the process.
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Jim Coffman rounds up the sports weekend every Monday in this space. He welcomes your comments.
Posted on March 8, 2010