There's an Interesting Twist in the Roquan Smith Holdout Situation

Chicago Bears fans are growing frustrated with first round pick Roquan Smith. It's been over a week since training camp began for the team down in Bourbonnais. During that time the young linebacker has been sitting at home while his agents and the Bears front office continue to sit in a deadlock over his rookie contract. It's been hard to pinpoint exactly what the hangup is. Some have assumed it's over offset language in his contract regarding whether the Bears get money back if they were to cut him. Others claim it's about the distribution of his roster bonuses. This might seem a bit trivial but there are no guarantees for a young player in the NFL and every penny matters in case things don't go as planned. That's fair. However, it's only part of the story. Head coach Matt Nagy offered some clarification to the issue after the teams' latest practice on Saturday. It turns out that part of the holdup may be due to the NFL itself and it's recent controversial rule change involving hits with the helmet.

This rule is basically similar to the "targeting" rule in college. Players will be penalized, fined, ejected and even suspended for lower their helmets when making a tackle. Smith, being a linebacker whose job it is to make tackles, is heavily impacted by this.

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Much of this new reality was brought about, ironically, by fellow Bears linebacker Danny Trevathan. Last season he was fined and suspended for a vicious helmet-to-helmet hit on Green Bay Packers wide receiver, Davante Adams. The fact it happened on national TV caused a huge uproar and no doubt got the ball rolling much faster on a rule change.

The problem is regarding a suspension. If Smith were to make such a hit and get suspended it would likely cost him some of the guaranteed money in his contract. His agents may be trying to push the Bears to insert some protections in the language of the deal against that eventuality, something that Nagy said is given to "very few" rookies. This has fast developed into a situation where it comes down to who will blink first. The Bears want their first round pick in camp but aren't going to be bullied into meeting all his demands. They're bolstered by the fact they have Nick Kwiatkoski waiting in the wings and he's had a really good camp thus far. If Smith wants to press the issue, they can sit back and ride it out with Kwiatkoski. There isn't a ton of leverage the #8 overall pick can utilize short of sitting out the entire season and applying for re-entry into the 2019 draft. The odds of that happening are astronomically low and it's virtually guaranteed he'd be drafted much later than he was this year, costing him more money in the long run.