System, not Bears, being unfair to Forte
The initial inclination is to portray the Bears as villains in the Matt Forte salary dispute.
The fairer approach is to understand there are no villains in these particular negotiations.
Except, that is, whoever collectively bargained the NFL’s current labor agreement for the players.
Look, life isn’t fair. It isn’t fair at Halas Hall. It isn’t fair in the United Kingdom where the Bears just won a game. It isn’t fair anywhere else in the world the players might scatter to during this bye week.
It’s fair to say, however, that life is equally unfair to a lot of people in a lot of job markets across this earth.
Some underachieving workers are overpaid and some overachievers are underpaid. Worst of all are those who aren’t paid at all because they can’t find work.
In baseball, Albert Pujols has been underpaid for a decade, but that’s just the way the game is played. The best player isn’t always the best paid. Sometimes he has to wait his turn.
Forte is in the overachieving/underpaid category. He deserves even more in salary than the many millions the Bears are offering him in a contract extension.
But that’s easy for everyone outside the McCaskey family to say. They haven’t paid huge sums of money to, say, Tommie Harris to break down for a couple of years.
Forte is playing like a running back who makes millions of dollars per season and maybe even as much as a million dollars per game.
But Forte’s compensation is more like $600,000 for this season and $37,000 each game, not enough regardless of what the currency exchange rate is on his home planet.
Yes, that’s an unfair wage by NFL star standards; some lesser backs than Forte recently received new contracts for much bigger bucks.
No, though, the Bears aren’t being unfair to Forte.
The players association agreed to a system that permits a team to control a player’s salary for the first few years of his career.
In Forte’s case, he’s still playing under his entry contract. If another long-term deal can’t be agreed to, the Bears can retain his rights by “franchising” him each of the next two seasons.
That ain’t all bad, folks. Forte likely would receive up to $8 million in 2012 and possibly up to $10 million in 2013.
Still, it is less than Forte would command if he keeps playing the way he is and could embark on the open market.
As unfair as Bears management appears to be, it’s playing by the rules.
The McCaskeys, president Ted Phillips and general manager Jerry Angelo aren’t allowed to whine when they lose the risk-reward gamble by guaranteeing millions at signing time to a veteran who proceeds to get hurt or underperform.
NFL money matters are fine examples of sometimes the Bear gets you and sometimes the Bears get gotten.
The Bears are getting Forte at a steal, so he has no choice but to be a bargain in pursuit of better bargaining position.
Continuing to play great football will help. But the only thing that really will help is a combination of playing great, staying healthy and reaching unrestricted free agency in a few years the way Albert Pujols is about to in baseball.
That isn’t fair to Forte, but the McCaskeys aren’t the ones being unfair. The NFL system is, just as systems in other industries can be.
Just ask day workers busting their buns on docks and assembly lines for a lot less than $600,000 this year.
mimrem@dailyherald.com