Will the Holdout Curse Affect Bears' Forte?

Brian Urlacher believes a holdout wouldn't hurt Matt Forte.

All due respect to a man who is very large and hurts people for a living, but Urlacher is flat wrong.

Nine times out of 10, a running back who holds out totally falls flat. Either they got paid, so they stop trying, or they're not properly conditioned, so they get injured.

Let the NFL Network run down the history of running back holdouts for you. So many of them end in disaster. And while that video also mentions the running backs who came back to glory, let's remember that the teams around them were fairly amazing. It's hard to tell just how good the Bears really are.

Holdouts are usually worse news for rookies. They're not ready to take a regular season pounding. As a fantasy football owner, I make it a point never to draft a holdout player ... especially a rookie.

But we're talking about Forte. Urlacher says he'll be in great shape. That may be the case. But the NFL regular season is a brutal grind. Forte's coming back from an injury. It would benefit him to ramp up his workload slowly, rather than being thrown in the deep end of a season opener.

Forte's holdout is understandable. And the Bears really should pay the man. But if both sides let this go on too much longer, it's liable to blow up in everyone's faces.

Contact Us