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What’s next for Brian Urlacher?
BY RICK TELANDER Sports Columnist September 16, 2014 10:30PM
Where’s our old buddy Brian Urlacher headed?
It was pretty easy to tell where he was going back when he roamed Soldier Field in his No. 54 Bears jersey, looking for something to annihilate. He was headed into the mayhem. The place where, for 13 seasons, he was comfortable.
Now? Well, Tuesday morning he announced he was quitting his job as an analyst with Fox Sports, a gig that had him appearing on Fox Sports 1’s ‘‘America’s Pregame’’ and Sunday morning’s ‘‘Fox NFL Kickoff.’’
It wasn’t an overly demanding schedule, though he had to stay well-versed in football matters, and he did have to fly to Los Angeles every weekend. But post-NFL career, nothing comes easy for most former stars.
That is, nothing comes easy except to those former players who were either a) always eager to get out or b) thrilled with the idea of becoming an actor or joining the media. Think Michael Strahan, Deion Sanders, Michael Irvin, Steve Young, Mark Schlereth, Boomer Esiason, etc. In fact, many of those jocks-turned-media-creatures seem way too eager — from my vantage point, anyway — to be slick and superficial and phony as clowns. I mean, have you ever seen more grown, large men howling with laughter over something that is not funny than former NFL players and coaches in their pregame roundtable shows?
If somebody says, ‘‘It might rain like cats and dogs in Seattle,’’ the others almost need corrective hernia surgery from their doubled-up hyena howling.
OK, I’ll stop. But the reason I bring that fraudulence up at all is that Urlacher doesn’t seem to have that funny bone. He never looked comfortable doing TV. He did a lot of endorsements and ads — he wasn’t too bad; I’m thinking Comcast and McDonald’s, mostly — but he admitted he was ‘‘uncomfortable appearing in commercials.’’
The truth is, he was — and is — uncomfortable doing just about anything that might be described as work, other than playing football. And at 36, even if he worked out forever, he’s too old.
‘‘I liked the shows, but the travel got to me quite a bit,’’ he said of quitting the Fox job. ‘‘I called the producers and I called the guys who run all the shows and talked to them, and they were very understanding of my situation.’’
But then he offered up just a little more, tellingly.
‘‘That was the main reason for me not doing it anymore.’’
Main reason. Not the only reason.
We don’t know what the other reasons may be. But I can assure you, being uncomfortable just talking about football was one of them.
Urlacher, one of the greatest middle linebackers in the history of the game, lived for the maelstrom of the pit, for all its simplistic but rules-governed brutality, more than most humans can understand. He never liked explaining it — he just wanted to do it.
And it was sad for him to not get that final year he wanted with the Bears, when, for whatever reason, he and his agent and Bears GM Phil Emery could not come to an agreement. Maybe the Bears never wanted the aging eight-time Pro Bowler back at all. But Urlacher could have made the Bears twist in the wind if he had just said, I’ll play one more year for whatever you pay me. Even if it’s nothing.
His bitterness with the way he left the Bears — and the game — in 2013 likely will be sanded down with time. But for now, he is an outsider, a man who, I’m saying, is a little lost.
Sure, he loves golf. He’s pretty good at it, those in the know say. Yippee. Try playing golf for the next 40-50 years and see how stimulating that is. If it’s one-100th as joyful as knocking the loving snot out of a ball carrier, please inform me.
On ‘‘The Spiegel and Mannelly Show’’ on Tuesday on WSCR-AM (670), Urlacher talked about a few things. He was on the show, no doubt, because former Bears long snapper Patrick Mannelly, the new co-host, was a teammate of his for over a decade, and, well, Mannelly’s one of those guys who seems to have eaten up the postgame media life.
He said of Bears cornerback Charles Tillman, out for the year, and maybe forever, that, ‘‘Peanut was still playing at a high level before he got hurt. I’m assuming his decision won’t involve Chicago, because I heard he was pretty close to leaving this year.’’
That’s good football gossip. But it’s something Urlacher said because he’s honest and probably wasn’t thinking about what it implied: that the Bears don’t care for their old stars.
Maybe someday he’ll find what he wants to do. And he’ll love the Bears again.
