LAKE FOREST, Ill. – Understanding that the franchise tag isn’t popular with NFL players, the Bears weren’t surprised by the comments that Lance Briggs made to ESPN.com Sunday night.

The Bears possess a great deal of respect for Briggs as a player and for what he has helped the team accomplish since he arrived in 2003 as a third-round draft pick from Arizona.

Linebacker Lance Briggs finished second on the Bears with 176 tackles this past season.

The club offered Briggs a lucrative long-term contract extension last offseason which would have made him the second-highest paid player on the Bears defense behind only Brian Urlacher. 

By placing the franchise tag on Briggs, the Bears assured the linebacker of earning $7.2 million for the 2007 season, the average of the NFL’s top five highest-paid players at his position.

If the Bears put the tag on Briggs again in 2008, he would be assured of making about $8 million. NFL teams are permitted to franchise a player for a third straight year, but the individual would be assured of making the average of the top five highest-paid players in the league, not just at his position.

Feeling restricted by the tag, Briggs told ESPN.com that he no longer wants to play for the Bears.

“There’s a difference between the Chicago Bears team and the Chicago Bears organization,” Briggs said in his first public comments about the situation.

“The Chicago Bears team? The coaches, players, city and fans? Yeah, I could stay there forever. I love it. But the Chicago Bears organization? I don’t want to be there anymore. I won’t play for them and I’ll do everything in my power to keep from playing there.”

The Bears did not place the franchise tag on Briggs to give themselves time to work on a long-term deal, but the club is keeping that possibility open.

“When we made the decision, it wasn’t with the intention that we were going to continue with negotiations,” general manager Jerry Angelo said Feb. 22 at the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis. “I’m not ruling that out. I’m not saying that that’s not a possibility. But the decision was made in terms of our finances that we would be playing under a one-year deal.

“When we visited with Lance and his agent (last spring), we did tell them that this was a possibility. He knew that. We wanted to go on record and say that and we did, so this isn’t a surprise to anyone. It might be a shock to somebody, but it’s not a surprise.”

Once Briggs signs the one-year tender, the NFL's new Collective Bargaining Agreement ensures that the $7.2 million is guaranteed. If the linebacker held out during the regular season, he would sacrifice 1/16 of the tender or about $450,000 for every game he missed.

From 2002-06, the franchise tag was used 42 times on 30 different players league-wide and not one of the franchised players missed a regular-season game check.

Only three of the 42 players have been traded: cornerback Champ Bailey, defensive end John Abraham and wide receiver Peerless Price. NFL rules prohibit the Bears from actively seeking a trade, though they can listen to other teams that contact them to discuss a possible deal.

The Bears obviously didn’t want to drive a wedge between themselves and Briggs. They simply wanted to retain his services for the 2007 season and are willing to do so by paying him $7.2 million.

“Do we take into account how the other person is going to react?” Angelo said at the Combine. “Certainly we do. We take that into account. But the overriding factors are we have a good football team and we want to keep as many good players as we can, and in our situation we were able to absorb that 7.2 number into our cap and keep him on our football team.

“It really is that simple. We think a lot of Lance. That’s why we did what we did.”