“It’s my last year”: Chicago Bears LB Roquan Smith is DONE negotiating with the franchise
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Roquan Smith
The Chicago Bears have been known to have a lot of young talent on their roster, offensively as well as defensively, however, they may have lost one of their key defensive players as a result of failed negotiations between the front office and their linebacker Roquan Smith. The defensive player had been holding out for a while and was not attending practices either but he decided to end this by showing up to practice on Saturday and participating in the team practice for the first time since negotiations began.
The negotiations seem to be done at least for now, Smith has agreed to play out his existing contract and become a free agent in March. He is guaranteed $9.7 million as a part of his fifth-year option, he was looking for a long-term deal but the team was offering him a number that he deemed was unacceptable. As a result of this, he had previously requested a trade from the team.
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Roquan Smith described the entire negotiation process as extremely “Distasteful”:
Roquan Smith had this to say about the negotiations with the Chicago Bears, he believes the team is trying to undervalue him and are not looking at what he brings to the table. “I thought (the process) was very distasteful, it wasn’t what I anticipated, nor what I expected from the situation… Now I’m just shifting my focus to the season and be the best teammate I can be to those guys in the locker room. It’s the last year of my deal. I’m going to take it and run with it and bet on myself. Negotiations are over right now,” Smith stated, in all likelihood, he is done with the Bears organization and is just looking to get out of there at the earliest but he does not want to let his teammates down and has returned so that he can be out there and ball out.
Roquan Smith is one of the players who does not have an agent, a trend that appears to be catching up in the league, he has been negotiating for himself and after the last round of negotiations, both sides were far apart in terms of his value which led to him having some harsh words for GM Ryan Poles in his letter dated 9th August.
“I see myself at a number, and they see me at a number, we couldn’t agree. We can agree to disagree. But I would never accept a bad deal like I pretty much said. I would never accept a deal that I don’t feel is worth what I’m worth. It wasn’t a number that I needed nor that I wanted,” Smith had stated in the letter. Roquan was attempting to get in on the massive contracts that have been floating this offseason across the league, but unfortunately for him, he could not get the bag.
The Bears are likely to franchise tag him in 2023 and this season will be paramount to him to prove that he is worth a lot of money, his performance will have a massive impact on the contract negotiations next offseason. Speaking on the negotiations themselves, Smith said “The talks didn’t get too far, they didn’t end in the way I wanted them to end. It’s going to be a big season for myself. At the end of the season, there’s a lot of different directions things could go, so I know I need to put myself and my body in the best possible situation for the team. I feel like with this time I have, it’ll be enough time for me to prepare myself for the season.”
Smith is no doubt the soul of the Chicago Bears offense as he has 524 tackles, 43 tackles for loss, 14 sacks, 17 QB hits, and 17 pass breaks along with 5 INTs in his 4 seasons in the NFL. Publicly there has been no number that Smith or the Bears have revealed but considering he is representing himself, things may not have gone in his favor. Most players who are representing themselves in negotiations are stuck without a deal irrespective of their talent, take Lamar Jackson for instance. Despite being a franchise quarterback, he still does not have a long-term deal with the Ravens.
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Sumedh Joshi
(2235 Articles Published)