Forte: Bears must not think I'm elite
Matt Forte has produced 51½ percent of the Bears' offense this season.
He hopes someone in the team's front office has noticed.
Forte's 634 yards from scrimmage are second in the NFL only to the 635 yards of Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker. Forte remains optimistic that his production makes an impression upstairs at Halas Hall and provides the impetus for a contract extension that he has been seeking for months.
“I'm not just out here playing for the heck of it,” Forte said. “I play because I love the sport and also because I want my teammates to respect me and the work ethic I put into the game. I just hope I turn some heads around here. Obviously the guys upstairs think of me in a certain way. Hopefully I will just turn their heads around about that.”
Forte is earning a base pay of $550,000 this year in the four-year, $3.78 million deal he signed after being drafted in the second round out of Tulane.
Before negotiations broke off, it is believed the Bears were offering something short of the four-year, $29.5 million deal that Frank Gore recently got from the 49ers, which included $13.5 million in guaranteed money. Forte has increased his value since then.
Since he entered the league in 2008, Forte is third with 5,365 yards from scrimmage, trailing only Chris Johnson and Adrian Peterson. Gore is eighth with 4,563 yards from scrimmage.
Johnson signed a six-year, $56 million deal last month after holding out during training camp and the preseason.
Forte figures if he continues to perform at the same level, he'll eventually get paid — by somebody.
“If I just continue to do that, if the Bears don't value me, hopefully another team will,” he said.
For now, he said he can only assume that the Bears don't put him in the same category as the NFL's top backs.
“You look at a guy's productivity, and you look at the guys that he's matched to,” Forte said. “Look at mine, and the elite status of other backs that are around the same amount of production. What I'm saying is, ‘They must not think I'm elite because they don't want to pay me on that same level as some of the other guys.'”
As bad as the Bears' offense is — No. 26 in total yards and No. 25 in passing yards — it would be a lot worse without Forte, the team's leading rusher and receiver.
“He makes us run,” quarterback Jay Cutler said. “We knew this coming into it. We knew it last year. He's a guy we've got to get touches to; he's a guy we've got to get involved. He can do everything. He can be out there for all three downs the whole game. Without him, we're going to be in some trouble.”
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