Bears give Piccolo Award to Adams
The Bears in recent weeks honored nose tackle Anthony Adams with the Ed Block Courage Award and on Tuesday they presented him with the Brian Piccolo Award.
Adams was gracious in accepting both, but now he’s hoping the next honor bestowed upon him is a new contract. He is one of nearly 500 free agents waiting in limbo for a labor agreement that will include a free agency period for unrestricted players like himself.
The 6-foot, 308-pound Adams wants to be back with the Bears, and they say they want him back but, for now, it’s a waiting game.
“I’ve been a free agent one time before, so it’s definitely nerve wracking, but it comes along with the territory,” Adams said. “This is what you signed up for, so I just have to sit back and let my agent do his job, and I’ll continue to do my job and work out and assure that I’m in great condition and get ready for the season.”
Adams started all 16 games last season at his physically demanding position for only the second time in his eight-year NFL career, and for the first time in his four years with the Bears. He led the team’s interior linemen with 36 tackles and had 2 sacks and 2 forced fumbles.
The Bears tried unsuccessfully to resign Adams near the end of the 2010 season, but they haven’t given up on getting something done when the free-agency period begins.
“Anthony’s done an awful lot,” coach Lovie Smith said. “But there’s a process you go through. So we’ll just let the process play out. I think Anthony knows how we feel about him. When you see how much a player has played for us, I think it tells you how much we like him.”
Last year’s seventh-round draft pick J’Marcus Webb was honored as the rookie winner of the Piccolo Award. Despite his modest draft position, the 6-foot-7, 328-pound West Texas A&M product moved into the starting lineup at offensive right tackle in Week Five and remained there throughout the season.
“From where he began to where he finished is truly remarkable,” offensive coordinator Mike Martz said. “It’s easily the most progress I’ve witnessed as a coach in my time in the NFL. This is a credit to who he is as a man.”
The soft-spoken Webb’s acceptance speech was the most eloquent and heartfelt in memory.
“I stand here humbled by the Brian Piccolo Award,” Webb said. “This award embodies the ideals of what a Chicago Bears player should strive to be. I’m not sure I’ll be able to measure up to such a man. But I certainly do promise to inspire others through my hard work and dedication.”
Brian Piccolo was signed by the Bears in 1965 as an undrafted free agent despite having led the nation with 111 points and 1,044 rushing yards at Wake Forest.
He was in his fourth NFL season, and his first as a starter, playing fullback in the same backfield as Gale Sayers, when a chest X-ray revealed a malignancy. Piccolo died several months later, at age 26, of embryonal cell carcinoma.
At that time, the disease was 100 percent fatal, but the cure rate is currently better than 70 percent.
Proceeds from the Brian Piccolo Cancer Research Fund benefit breast cancer research at Rush Medical Center and the Clearbrook Center for the developmentally disabled in Arlington Heights.
The fund has raised more than $8 million since 1991.
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