satisfaction lack thereof with his contract. Let's have
a listen to what he said back then.
Any thoughts about your contract and keto? So you have
you hired an agent, you have an agent. I think like you said
it's personal
at the end of the day, so
all I've business is just more so my business and
upstairs and I'm confident that
we'll get everything
taken care of. How do you manage it as a player
representing yourself? Like, how do you learn about?
I guess, the business part of the Asian part stuff that agent
would typically do. How do you take
that on as a player?
Oh, that's so nice of you trying to
with that question. He just asked. But like I said, it's
all personal.
At the end of the day and that's just what I'm focused on
my main focus is out there on the field and doing what I have
to do to get better and better with my boys,
you envision yourself here, long term, when you think about
your career, do you want to be here and expect to be here
very well. Absolutely. Yeah, that's my plan.
According to nflpa record Smith does not have an agent. He was
represented when he did his rookie deal and he reportedly
will not be participating in training camp because he is not
happy with his Contract. He's entering the fifth and final
year of
his rookie contract.
The bears, picked up the
fifth year option and
look, hopefully, the nflpa will explain to him what it means to
hold out. Obviously, you have a daily fine, that will pile up
pretty quickly but there's a clause in the CBA that says, if
you are in that fifth year,
option on your first round rookie deal. If you miss
a preseason game
the fine for that
is the equivalent of one game. Check.
Regular season pay,
I became aware of that 45 years ago when Cleo Mac just said to
Jon Gruden, the Raiders. I'm not showing up at all. That was
part of the risk. He was taking in missing preseason games, but
if Smith is going to hold out that deep into
training camp, he needs to be aware
that it's a pretty stiff fine if you start missing preseason
games and and and it's look, I'm a firm believer, every
player needs a good Agent, not a bad agent, a good Agent,
despite all
the things I've said today. You still need somebody who can get
in there and negotiate that contract, who knows the market,
and who can properly guide you through this process and give
you, you need an out. If you're going to hold out,
you need an ally, you need, somebody in your corner. It's
going to feel like you against the world. If you're holding
out and you're under contract, you need somebody who's going
to help you through that. That rough spot
of being the guy who goes against the trend and refuses
to show up and work. Yeah,
listen, he's, I'm never mad either. I wish you had
an agent. No, that we've discussed that thoroughly.
All right, but he's grossly underpaid
and he's one of the best middle linebackers in football. He's
phenomenal and he's a car crash player and when guys like that,
I have no problem with them, not going to training camp.
Yeah, there's their sacrifice there.
But damn got training camp for a guy like that. It's brutal,
its physical, it's physical middle linebacker. I don't care
what it is, if it's not a walkthrough, you're in
the middle of the scrum and hitting
every play every down,
so it's just it's a brutal.
Mission. I understand that he's not a real big guy.
You know, sometimes these
medium-sized linebackers their, their careers don't last as
long because, you know, their body starts to fail them. But
I mean for me and my money he's in this conversation right here
with these guys right on the list, no doubt about
it. In fact, I would say he's better than Bobby Wagner at
this point of his career but he's every bit up there with
the Darius, Leonard's in the front water, Fred Warner's of
the world and he's being paid nowhere like that, nowhere like
that,
you know? So Dion Jones being paid 14 million dollars, a year
broke want Smith, and my money is better than Dion Jones right
now. So he has written
something to stand on.
I think legitimately
as far as wanting more money and wanting a long-term
contract, especially when it comes to that position, Mike
9.7. 35 million is what he's due to make this year, under
his fifth year option and
he held out as a rookie. Yeah, back in 2018 and there was a
I remember it was at this fight over the triggers that would
cause
Has guaranteed money to evaporate because that's one of
the things. As we discussed earlier guaranteed money, can
be affected by Colour Murray's ferry to put in 4 hours of
study per week. But it was
the Bears had a very broad Clause, it would have been.
I think any type of fine whatsoever would have allowed
them to rip up the remaining guarantees. Now look ended up
being a good enough player that they wouldn't have wanted to
get
out from under his contract. But that's what that fights all
about. You want to find ways where you can get out from
under a guy's contract, if he ends up not being very Very
good Smith is end up ended up being very good and now he
embarks on trying to get his second contract, without the
assistance of an agent will see
how long he holds out. And if he can get something done, or
if you automate hires an age,