Brian Urlacher Voluntarily Decides To Not Go To Voluntary Workouts

Football season is still about four months away, but teams around the league have already begun their voluntary off-season workout programs. Now, they're called voluntary, and teams can't punish their players for missing them, but for the most part you're expected to show up.

A few years ago Thomas Jones and Lance Briggs skipped the workouts, and Lovie Smith took away their starting jobs. Last season it was Briggs again who skipped the workouts as a protest to his being franchised by the team, and wanting a long-term contract. Well, this year Lance finally has his money, and he's showing up to the workouts. Still, there's another Bears linebacker who's not going to be able to make it.

Brian Urlacher.

Brian Urlacher told the Tribune on Sunday he plans to skip the first day of workouts, slated to begin Monday, and left open the strong possibility that he will bypass the Bears' entire voluntary off-season program, which includes organized team activities (OTAs).

The face of the Bears franchise informed the team of his intentions to remain in Arizona rather than attend the program at Halas Hall.

Brian did miss a few workouts last season, but it had nothing to do with his contract as much as it had to do with taking parenting classes and going to court. This year, it's the contract.

Though Brian has gone about it in a much quieter way than Lance Briggs did last season, he wants a contract extension and his agent has been in constant contact with the Bears the last few weeks. Urlacher, of course, signed an extension with the Bears back in 2002 that at the time was the biggest contract in team history: Nine years, $56.65 million.

The problem is that Brian's contract is outdated now in 2008. He'll only be making $3.95 million this season, and while that's a lot of money to you and me, in the world of NFL linebackers it's pretty average these days.

This could turn out to be quite problematic for the Bears though, because I'm not sure signing Brian to an extension now is the right thing to do. He did just have neck surgery in the off-season, and I'm not sure committing a bunch of money to a soon-to-be 30 year old linebacker coming off of neck surgery is the wisest financial decision. Whether he likes it or not, he's still under contract with the team until 2011. Frankly, Brian should have known how outdated this deal would have become when he signed it, and maybe signed a 5-year deal instead which would have allowed him to test the free agent market and really strike it rich.