NFL FootballPost: No Love for Lovie??? Robinson slams Bears as Cheap.
No love for Lovie
By Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports
February 24, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS – Socialist George Bernard Shaw once labeled the lack of money as "the root of all evil." And today, for the Chicago Bears, it's the lack of spending that's the root of all trouble.
We’ve come up with respectable little titles for the Bears this week, as they continue to drag their feet on head coach Lovie Smith's new contract. I've heard the franchise and the McCaskey family called "hard-line negotiators" and "cautious spenders." To me, they're cheap and embarrassing.
One year ago, after Smith had coached the Bears out of the NFC North basement, the team put a new contract on the back burner. The message was clear: Prove it wasn't a fluke. One year later, Smith has taken the Bears to a Super Bowl. Now he wants to be paid like an upper-tier coach, and the Bears have yet to sniff a contract near the length and financial rewards of the league's other active Super Bowl coaches – a fraternity that includes guys such as Mike Holmgren (Seattle Seahawks), Mike Shanahan (Denver Broncos), John Fox (Carolina Panthers) and Jon Gruden (Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
It's shoddy. It's foolish. And it's wrong.
What's embarrassing is what the Bears would have the public believe about the contract negotiations. On Friday, general manager Jerry Angelo went on a Chicago radio station and sounded flabbergasted about the whole situation, throwing out some garbage about the media using the impasse to create "conspiracy theories."
First off, I don't care what Angelo has to say, other than his admission that this is still a negotiation that ultimately falls at the feet of ownership. As far as I'm concerned, whatever angle Angelo takes on this whole affair is tainted by the fact that he's still got to worry about his own contract.
Secondly, Bears fans and corporate sponsors – the people who truly pay the bills – should be smart enough to see through what has become emergency plan No. 1 and 1A in the contract negotiation playbook: When you're trying to get over on someone and word gets out that negotiations are taking a turn for the worst, aim for the same two lame-ass targets:
Blame the agent. The public will always buy the agent as the slimy black hat in the negotiation process. A guy like Smith's agent, Frank Bauer, is an easy mark, because he is the one charged with forcing the issue and fighting for the money that his client wants/deserves. Nobody ever likes the bill collector. Go figure.
Blame the critical members of the media. The media slime (and this seems to be a catch-all feeling for the Bears these days) always blows things out of proportion. We're just looking for a story; stirring the pot; and generating "conspiracies" to undermine the powers that be. The Bears know fans rarely relate to athletes or coaches fighting for another million dollars, or the writers who try to justify that battle. So blame the media. Nobody likes the media except the agents, right?
Well, here is a dose of reality. I live in Chicago, but I don't have a horse in this race. I don't have a personal relationship with Smith, and got stone-walled by Bauer on Saturday afternoon. I have nothing against Angelo or the McCaskey family. But I know a rotten situation when I see it. Furthermore, executives, coaches and agents walking around the NFL Scouting Combine this week, who don't have a horse in this race, are seeing the same things.
Those things are the facts and realities of finances. Like Smith being the lowest paid coach in the NFL, with even a handful of coordinators drawing better salaries. Something that only looks uglier in the wake of Miami Dolphins defensive coordinator Dom Capers inking a deal that will pay him an average of $2.7 million a year – roughly twice what Smith made this season.
The Bears can look at Smith's salary and say it is a reality of breaking in as a head coach three years ago, but in a league where contracts are regularly torn up and success is rewarded, the $1.45 million he's slated to make in 2007 is a joke. Come this summer, when Forbes does its annual breakdown of NFL teams and their finances, Smith should be rated the No. 1 most valuable (read: crappiest paid) coach when it comes to the correlation between victories and salary.
But look at the checkbook with a fresh perspective. The Bears are one of the most financially lucrative franchises in the league – to the tune of a $51.5 million profit in 2005. This is a team that has no problem reaping rewards from personal seat licenses, luxury boxes, parking and concessions. Their merchandising is almost always in the NFL's upper half. Facts that translate into a salient point: the Bears have no problem making money even when the franchise isn't winning.
That speaks volumes as to why Chicago has earned itself the label of being a cheapskate franchise when it comes to the head coach. After all, how much value does a coach have when winning and losing isn't the difference between being in the black or red financially? Therein lays the little secret that few people realize. When you've got a crown jewel franchise in a major market – say, New York, Chicago or Miami – you don't need to compete for Super Bowls consistently to make money. You only need to give your fan base a taste of it once every decade.
Why do people think Arthur Blank and the Atlanta Falcons just signed Bobby Petrino to what amounted to a five-year $24 million deal last month? A lucrative deal gifted to Petrino despite the fact that he's never been a head coach in the NFL. Why? Because Blank believes Petrino can make the Falcons consistent winners, and he knows Atlanta needs to be at the top of the NFC South in order to sell seats and make profits. The McCaskey family wouldn't know that pressure. Maybe they should talk to Blank, Wayne Weaver in Jacksonville or the Spanos family in San Diego.
Those teams have been accused of being cheapskates with their coaches, too. And they've paid for it dearly when losses and lulls in attendance have impacted the bottom line.
Maybe chairman Michael McCaskey thinks the Bears gave Lovie his break as a head coach in the NFL, so the franchise deserves a discount. Or he doesn't want to lavish another contract on a coach after past mistakes with Dick Jauron and Dave Wannstedt. But Smith shouldn't be made to pay for Chicago's past financial errors, or McCaskey's warped pay scale that has ensued because of them. In the end, all that matters is the Bears and Lovie exist in a marketplace that suggests the starting pay for the fraternity of Super Bowl head coaches starts in the neighborhood of $5 million a season.
Lovie held up his end of the bargain, winning 26 games the last two years and delivering the team to the brink of a world championship, meaning he's already given the franchise two great years at a discount price. Now it's time for the McCaskey family to discover their internal Charles Dickens character Jacob Marley and repent.
Do the right thing and pay him. Or lose him to an owner next season that actually needs a good coach to continue to line his pockets.
Charles Robinson is a national NFL writer for Yahoo! Sports. Send Charles a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast. |
