Bears shouldn’t be in rush to sign Urlacher

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Something will get done between the Bears and Brian Urlacher. Contract standoffs between teams and players of Urlacher's stature get resolved somehow, some way. They just do (except in the case of Terrell Owens, who is half-crazy).

It could get ugly in the glare of the media spotlight if Urlacher stays away for part of training camp.

But it won't go much further than that.

Until then, expect more pointless posturing from a player who hasn't seemed to like his job much since the Bears lost Super Bowl XLI.

The negative vibes were apparent in comments Urlacher recently made to Yahoo Sports, saying he expects to skip the mandatory mini-camp at the end of this month because of dissatisfaction with his contract.

"I don't understand what they're doing," he said of the Bears.

What they're doing is prioritizing. Defensive tackle Tommie Harris will be a free agent after next season and, based on age, is a more important player than Urlacher. The Bears can keep Harris by using the franchise-player tag, but all parties would rather have a multi-year deal in place.

Devin Hester has two years remaining on his rookie contract and is more underpaid than Urlacher, who has four years left.

After Harris, the Bears will tackle the difficult task of reaching an agreement with the best return specialist of all time.

It is not as though the Bears have ignored Urlacher. They offered him a one-year extension that would have dropped an extra $5 million in his lap immediately and potentially boosted his base salaries by $1 million a season. Still, Urlacher made some reasonable points in the story.

The salary cap is much higher than it was when he signed his nine-year, $57 million contract in 2003.

His dollar value has not grown accordingly. Moreover, as Urlacher said, the Bears could cut him at any point because NFL contracts are not guaranteed.

Players, then, should have the right to renegotiate if they have outplayed the value of their deal.

At the same time, that is the trade-off guys make when they decide to play pro football for a living.

Urlacher and his agent also could have negotiated voidable years into the deal if they thought he might want to tear the thing up eventually.

Nobody is crying for Urlacher, who made $13 million the moment he signed his name to that contract.

He made $4 million the past two seasons and is set to make $4 million again this season, $5 million in 2009 and more than $6 million each in 2010-11.

If Urlacher is worried about his health, whether neck and back issues will knock him out of the game, plenty of people would understand his stance.

But in the mercenary world of pro football, his health is exactly the reason the Bears should not rush into anything here.

As is always the case, this also is about pride. Urlacher knows 11 NFL linebackers made a bigger base salary than he did last season.

He told Yahoo, "If you're a chair-builder, and you feel you're the best at what you do, and other chair-builders are making more than you, then you'd want to be paid more, too."

That was Urlacher's way of trying to appeal to the average fan who has trouble sympathizing with his stance.

Good luck with that, Brian.

• Nick Hut is a sportswriter for the Northwest News Group. He can be reached at nhut@nwherald.com.