Finding Spare Change

By: Dustin Beutin

Is there anyone else at Halas Hall that needs be paid? Rumor is that the janitor will be holding out for a new deal that includes a $2 million dollar signing bonus and free window cleaner.

With the signing of Devin Hester to a deal that pays him wide receiver money before proving he can be a wide receiver, Jerry Angelo has truly lived out the age old adage of “it’s easy to spend money when it isn’t yours.”

For a long time, the Bears suffered the dark nickname of “The Misers of the Midway” and an infamous reference ownership’s penchant for treating nickels as manhole covers. That’s because – back in the day – the guy signing the checks wasn’t just a front man for a multi-million dollar business: George Halas was the guy from whose pocket that manhole cover was going to be cautiously pulled forth.

The way in which Bears players have tapped their monetary dinner plates for a helping of hot, steaming cash over the last full year would make you think that the Bears had won Super Bowl XLI. Usually when a team wins the big one, you can expect to see a line of players, gently smothering a slight cough with one hand and holding the other palm out for a wad of bills. This is not only normal; it’s become accepted culture in the NFL that if a team wins the big dance, the vast majority can expect to see their value rise.

What has happened in Chicago, however, has taken this culture of winner takes all (and the money) and pushed the boundaries to a new level. The Bears – sadly – did not win in 2006. The rain and the Colts washed away the hopes of that team and the city in a night most Chicagoans have chosen to forget. Yet, the remaining players from that (failed) run at glory have been knocking on the door of Jerry Angelo for raises as if they had indeed carried the silver trophy from Miami to Midway.

What can the fans – and the ownership of the Bears, for that matter – expect to get in return for this new investment? If it’s to be assumed that this investment is the key to an improvement in play by all those players who have gotten freshly minted contracts, then is it therefore logical to assume that the Bears tanked in 2007 simply because they weren’t respected enough monetarily? Is it that the trip to Miami meant the team was incapable of playing at a championship level until paid better? Were we duped into believing that the Bears were suffering from a Super Bowl “Curse” last year, when in reality the players were protesting their measly contracts by dropping passes, blocks and games to a beatable string of opponents?

Is it now fair for fans to expect a playoff run or is there still someone from 2006 waiting to get an extra dime from Angelo?

Desmond Clark. Brian Urlacher. Lance Briggs. Rex Grossman. Kyle Orton. Devin Hester. Tommie Harris. Robbie Gould. They all got paid. Angelo’s checkbook by now looks like the shredded paper of a gerbil cage.

Did they deserve it? Well, let’s put it this way. In 2006, all of those players certainly played like they did. In 2007, they didn’t exactly light the world on fire. And, yes, that means Devin Hester as well.

Not to sound blasphemous, but while Devin DOES deserve to be paid like a special player, he has not yet earned starting Wide Receiver money. The lasting image from the first year of the Devin Hester experiment on offense in the previous season was of Muhsin Muhammad having to physically put Devin in the right place on the field before each snap. How is a player that doesn’t yet know where to line up worth the type of money Hester re-signed for days ago? The dark answer is the Bears have taken a gamble. The kind of gamble that would never have happened in the days of George Halas. And while penny loafers, bowler hats and tweed suits have indeed gone out of style, being smart with money has not.

If the Bears thought the fans in Chicago were rough on them last season, just see how ire and fire will rain down from the talk show airwaves and Solder Field’s seating level 400 if this team posts another losing season. In a city built on the intersection of blue collar and farm field values, there is nothing more derided within the sporting heart of the Midwest than over paid players. Win and there will be no discussion; lose and these Bears will have to wonder what they ever did to make themselves such pariahs in this fair city.

The good thing about all of the green that has tumbled into the laps of the Bears is that now the city of Chicago will get the clearest measure possible of these players’ hearts. The money is there. So is the supposed respect that comes with a big payday.

So, will the Bears show up – no longer distracted by their “poor” pay from the previous season - or will they be too busy counting their money? It’s entirely possible that all of this desire for “respect” in the form of pocket dough will sap the hunger right out of this unit. After all, the only thing these players have to play for now is real respect – the kind that’s earned on the football field and in the Super Bowl. The kind of respect that can only be earned when you dominate your opponent week in and week out.

Can a player be expected to play at one hundred percent when he has paper cuts from counting Benjamins? Or does the cash allow him to focus on scoring touchdowns?

Jerry Angelo stepped up to the plate this off-season and officially changed the culture of the Bears as an organization. Anyone and everyone that showed up at his door with a feedbag out-stretched received a shovel-full of hundred dollar bills slopped inside. It is truly a far cry from the days of Papa Bear.

But, maybe there was a reason Halas was so cautious with his money. Maybe he understood that there was and still is a danger in over-paying players. A danger in equating money with respect; with putting down payments over touchdowns.

Then again, Halas was just a simple minded man: he was only interested in winning championships.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Though other sportswriters in Chicago might still be unpacking their carpetbags, Dustin Beutin is a born and bred Chi-town sportswriter. Heading into the heart of the Big Ten (Purdue) broadened his sports views, and it was during the Jauron era that he lost the innocence of blind love for Chicago sports and began looking for an outlet to vent his frustration. A trip out west to USC for a Master’s in writing was only tolerable with high doses of ESPN and Dodgers games, though it gave him a respect for the national perspective. Now in the early stages of a sports-writing career, Dustin hopes to give back to the city of Chicago everything it gave him: opinions and heartburn.

Share This Article

No Comments

No comments yet.

Comment On This Article