Chicago Bears Roster Review: Lance Briggs

Mandatory Credit: Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

The Chicago Bears offseason is in full swing as we head toward the start of the new league year and Free Agency. As a part of our Chicago Bears Roster Review, we’re leading off by looking at Bears Free Agents. New GM Ryan Pace and head coach John Fox have some tough decisions to make as they reshape the Bears roster in hopes of a bounceback 2015 season.

Lance Briggs, OLB, Age 34 – Unrestricted Free Agent

2014 Review

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The 2014 season was a forgettable one for the former Arizona Wildcat as it was easily his worst season as a pro. Lance had career lows in games played (8), tackles (35) and sacks (0) – and that was only half the story. He started off the season making headlines for missing practice to attend the opening of his restaurant in California, which caused an well-deserved uproar among the Chicago fans and media.

Later in the year after a groin injury ended his season, Briggs admitted to the media that he tends to tune out coaches during meetings and looks forward to the conclusion of meetings. In a season where Lance was looked at as a leader, he was more of a distraction. In a linebacker unit that was as bad as it gets in the NFL, Lance was part of the problem and not the solution. As I stated before, this was a season to forget for Lance.

Career

Lance Briggs was a third round draft pick (68th overall) by the Bears in the 2003 NFL Draft and has been a pillar of consistency until 2014. Even though this past season has been a forgettable one for Lance, let us all not forget that this is arguably the greatest outside linebacker that has put on the orange and blue. Over the last 11 years Briggs leads the NFL in tackles for a loss (81), is a 7-time pro bowler and is 3rd all time among NFL linebackers with 5 interceptions returned for a touchdown. Many will say that Urlacher made him better than he was. In my opinion, they made each other better. For a tribute to #55 please see my post from last month highlighting my “Top 5 Lance Briggs Moments”

2015 Outlook

With all of the teary goodbyes out of the way, it looks to be highly unlikely that #55 will be back as we most likely have seen the last of Lance Briggs in a Chicago Bear uniform. Going through the better part of my 20’s watching Lance dominate, my heart wants him to stay but my mind knows that it would not make business sense to bring him back.

Like many other underachieving veterans last year for this team, he took up a lot of salary and not a lot of performance. Lance will free up $6.5 million of cap space for the Bears to rebuild in 2015. That being said, we all said the same thing last year about the departure of Julius Peppers and look how that turned out – in other words, you never know.

However, of all the positions to project for the upcoming season, linebacker is probably the most challenging and anything is possible. The Bears have six linebackers under contract: Shea “the bust” McClellin, Jon Bostic, Khaseem Greene, Christian Jones, DeDe Lattimore and Jonathan Brown. Even though not confirmed, the Bears are almost certain to move to a 3-4 defense in 2015.

Look for the Bears to make a push for a free agent outside pass rusher such as Justin Houston, Jason Worilds or Brian Orakpo. I don’t think it’s a secret at all that the Bears are looking for some playmakers at OLB and could take two in April’s upcoming draft in Chicago. This was a very underwhelming unit that looked absolutely clueless last year and I don’t think bringing back an over-the-hill Briggs makes them better. He had his chance to play teacher last year and he failed. It’s time to move on. Thanks for the memories, Lance.

What do you think? Should the Bears bring Briggs back?

Bear Down!!!

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