Bears. Linebacker row Quinn. Smith in the final year of his
rookie contract at 5th year. Option due to make under 10
million, he is underpaid. He is also unrepresented, he decided
to on his own.
Make it known that he's requested a trade statement
issued yesterday just about this time. I've officially
request trade just writing these words is deeply painful.
Unfortunately the new front office regime doesn't value me.
Here
it refused to negotiate in. Good faith. Every step in this
journey has been take it or leave it. I've been trying to
get something I'm done that's fair since April but their
focus has been on trying to take advantage of me. I haven't
had the chance to
talk to the McCaskey family and maybe
they can salvage this but as of right now
I don't see a path back to the organization. I truly love.
Somebody pointed out to me yesterday, how can you have
been negotiating since April? If all they're ever saying is
take it or leave it. But
this is part of the problem of a player representing himself.
It does create awkward conversations. It makes it
difficult for the team.
I don't think the team
would like to take advantage of him.
This it's tougher. Negotiator
Because they all want to have the opportunity
to do a great deal.
You Justify Your Existence, if your job is to negotiate
and you have X dollars that have been allocated to this
specific negotiation.
Anything, you save under that makes you look like a hero
and that's the Temptation. And we've seen it with
self-represented players, the initial Russell Okun deal in.
Denver embarrassment for the player, the Richard Sherman
deal in, San Francisco, sorry Richard. But you know what
happened? And if I'll be able to get involved into a 49ers,
can you
Like change a few. It's a little bit too
little bit too far
here with the unrepresented player so there's going to be
a temptation to do it. The problem is even mess with
a core player. Chris
you invite a problem and now they have a core defensive player
who's upset with what's going on. He's gone public about it.
Let's hear before we talk about it. Let's hear. I'm going to
follow the flow of the program. Let's hear from GM Ryan polls
yesterday responding to the request
from row Quinn Smith to be traded.
My feelings. For rogue one haven't changed at all. I think
he's a very good football player.
I love the kid. Love what he's done on the field,
which makes me really disappointed with where we're
at right now.
I thought we'd be in a better situation to be completely
honest with you.
In terms of our philosophy in the front office, I've always
believed and always will be that we take care of our
homegrown Talent, we pay them, we take care of them
and and we take care of them for what they've done and what
they can be become in the future.
And with this situation, we've showed respect from a from
a very early time frame. And
With that said, I mean there's there's record-setting pieces
of this contract that
I knew for a fact was I thought was going to show him
the respect that he deserves. And obviously that hasn't been
the case right now, my intentions are to sign real Quan to this
team
and we're going to take it day by day
and at the end of the day, we got to do what's best for this
organization. But my intentions are to make sure real Quan
Smith's on this team
has been directly to you. Not because he doesn't have
an agent. How does that work?
And make it's difficult. It's difficult.
There's there's emotions involved
and
it's tough. It's a very unique situation that we've had
a dealt with deal with. And I thought we've done a pretty
good job,
which again, that's why I'm a little disappointed that we're
at this spot.
It is difficult, and it's emotional because 40 Quinn
Smith. This is it. This is going to be the biggest
negotiation of his life
of his football life.
And this and this he's got one shot Bears doing all the time.
Negotiate this kind of cliche
for the player. It is emotional. It is a big deal.
This is about securing his future financially for himself
and his family. He's going to be emotional,
it would be easier for everyone if he did have an agent Chris
and clearly something isn't working or he wouldn't have did
what he did yesterday. I know, I, you know, it man. This is
there's a lot of things to say here. First off yet, you know,
you need the agent. I don't know any other way.
Did I say it? The agent is what you know,
he's the guy that Bridges, the gap between wait, this is okay
for the organization. But this is great for my player here and
we didn't screw you over and
we you gave us what we needed here right here. And and again,
it's hard for me to side with the player here. When yeah,
he's great player. But I mean, you know, again,
none of the guys, you mentioned there anything,
they're not agents, they're not lawyers. That's not
the profession and I just don't agree with this. Take of, we're
going to say
You know, 3% or 1.5%, you know. So it's hard and like Ryan Paul
said, like,
yeah, these are conversations where
they can be delicate and he's trying, you know, real Quan
Smith maybe thinks more of himself than he in actuality,
you know, there's a lot of their then they got to kind of
tell him. No, you're not that guy or this guy or
whatever. I mean it. So this is it's very delicate. I do
believe in, you know, I know
the Bears want row Quan Smith.
And he's one of their blue chippers. They don't have many
on their roster.
Rokk Juan Smith is the guy.
He's one of the most physically gifted linebackers in football
and I would think in this, you know, Matty brief lose defense.
He I actually think this fits him more than what he's been
doing in Chicago with more of the three, four base scheme.
You know, now there are 43. Wait just worried about this
Gap and if it doesn't come, the ball doesn't come into your
Gap, then you just go run and make the damn tackle, and he's
a tackling machine. Freaky that way.
So I do think that you know, they understand the value to
him there but there's obviously a disconnect and I can't
imagine them letting him out the door here easily for
the reasons. I just stated you know I think they want
him to be there you know
Shaquille Leonard, right? That Maddie really that's his that's
what we're calling him now. Right. In Indianapolis. That's
still not going into my head the right way, but I would
think Maddie bird flus wants real consummate to be
the quarterback of his defense
just like Shaquille. Leonard was
In Indianapolis.
So yeah, again, I just don't understand it, I don't. And
with a guys like this to you and I both know there's agents
out there
that will take 1.5% take 1% for for a star player that they
know is going to make a pretty good chunk of change.
And so I don't agree with the player. In this instance, I'm
always for the player getting money, but the player I just
want to say, you get more money when the agents there, that's
their profession.
I mean jeez.
It's like a In the agent to go play middle linebacker. I don't
want to see that he's not qualified and you know, a lot
of these players are not qualified to negotiate
contracts
and I'm not trying to disrespect anything.
I if I was in that instance,
damn, I know I couldn't do it. I know I couldn't, there's no
way
and I think there's a lot of other players that would feel
the same way too and I hope they can figure something out
to make it work because I do like Matty brief loose. I like
real Quan Smith. And
you know, the Bears are a storied franchise and it's just
a crazy thing to see here. With this
example, I use all the time, my house needs to be painted.
I don't have the time to do it. I don't have the skill to do it.
I would rather focus on the things
that I'm capable of doing
some would disagree on my level of capability.
But I would rather at least focus on the things for which
I can generate Revenue that will pay for the house to be painted
by someone. That was, my dad's approach all the time we were
as lower middle class as you
could be. But but he always said, there's somebody out
there who does this for a living. We should let that
person do this
and Their Endeavor and I'll focus on what I do instead and
it worked. It worked. Yeah, it was it's great even though
I don't know where
we got the money to pay those people.
But that's that's the attitude. Don't do things that you don't
have the expertise that doing and it takes you away. How
look, he's got to get ready
and I know he's not practicing but it's still training camp.
Yeah, he's still in training, aren't friends working out.
Once we ready to go, we want if he does get a new contract, you
know, it reminds me of the Michael Corleone line from The
Godfather. It's
not personal. No, it's strictly business for an agent, it can
be strictly business for the player, it's too personal, it's
inherently personal. And it's one thing to say, I'm going to
represent myself on a free agent tour
because that's a different interaction.
They're trying to recruit you and, and they'll smile to your
face while they stick the knife in your back with the contract
offer. But with this, you've got an existing relationship
that the player wants to continue
that the team wants to continue,
but the players His one shot at getting paid. The team is
trying to manage an entire roster is Ryan polls. Said you
got a salary cap to worry about
the player may have an inflated value
on his overall abilities.
The team is more analytics based and more objective and
how do you sit across from the table and save the player?
You're not as good as you think you are. It's a tough spot for
everyone. And Chris,
I hate to say this,
but I think it all comes down to the fact that the
Agent fee isn't removed from the game check
that the player has to write a check every year
and the player doesn't understand what he's getting for it.
The the players some of them think
I'm paying this guy,
all this money and he just made a couple of phone calls
to
negotiate. My contract. And you don't understand that, it's
something we've talked about with a large accident, so much
more involved than that. There's so much more that goes
into, truly representing the interests of a player, and
I hate to think that it's just
Because because if it was coming out of the game checks,
you don't notice it. If you got to sit down at the end of
the year agreed and right, that's a dumb percent different story,
15 million dollars. That's a lot. That's a hundred fifty
thousand dollars. This is gone and it's never coming back.
Yeah, it's harder to process it, and
it would be very good for the
broader player agent relationship.
If they just took the fees out
along with taxes and everything else. Yeah, I don't disagree
with you there. I do think that would be less of a hit on
a player. You're right. Just, you know, so you can almost
appropriate appropriate. Polly appropriately, appropriately
plan for it that way
I do. I think that probably hurts a little bit more
but something interesting that maybe the nflpa should think
about a little bit. But yeah,
I hope they get it done. Then it man. It seems like it's got
an ugly right now. It hasn't. It hasn't gotten better at all,
you know, usually with these kind of things you start to
hear like, oh I think a they're getting close and hey,
okay. But this seems like it's going in the wrong direction
and I think that's why Brian poles is so disappointed, you
know, I don't Use the word some record-breaking
aspects of this and that's where you know again we don't
know the details but I would love to know because I don't
think he's throwing that out there to go.
You know it's some BS.
You know phrase just to make himself sound good. It sounds
like they've made
a pretty damn good offer.
But again you know I just I wish you would get an agent.
I love rock Juan Smith. I think he's a hell of a football
player. I'm offer him getting as much as he can. I know that
but
I don't, I don't I agree with the approach.
Yeah. I and we've talked about this before
as it relates to the hold in
most of them. I think all of them. So, far, resulted in
a new contract at some point. You reach, an impasse at some
point, you say to the player, who's holding in
go, get your helmet.
Time to get to work.
I don't know what happens here,
and he can't leave while he can. I mean, he can do whatever
he wants. But if he leaves,
then they send the five-day letter.
If he doesn't come back, he shut down for the whole year.
Can't play for anybody now. I don't know how. Of lead
the Bears would pursue something like that but that's why it's
always better to hold out than show up and consider leaving
once you're in and you leave it so much harder to exercise
rights under the CBA. But right now at some point we got to get
ready for Week 1 if we're not going to work out this contract
so we'll see how that plays out.