Brian Urlacher - O que vai acontecer?

If even half the rumors swirling around the NFL about Brian Urlacher's negotiation tactics are true, then maybe the Bears ought to reconsider their offense-building pledge for the draft and take a hard look at the middle linebacker class.

One league source says Urlacher's agents have asked the team if they could explore a trade. Another says Urlacher is threatening to retire because of neck and back problems, a move in which he wouldn't have to repay any portion of the $13 million signing bonus he received in 2003, when he received a nine-year, $56.65 million deal.

Urlacher feels he has outplayed his contract and is demanding more money. He's boycotting the team's voluntary offseason workout program and threatening to hold out of minicamp, organized team activities and even training camp if he doesn't get a new deal.

One NFL insider laughed off the situation as the equivalent of a child taking his ball and going home or threatening to hold his breath until he passes out.

''Urlacher has no leverage,'' the source said. ''He wants to be paid, right? If he takes a medical [retirement], then he's got to prove he's hurt. If he does that, he'll never get paid. They're not going to trade him. All he can do is be disruptive.

''It's a joke. Players never walk away from millions. They threaten to, but they never do it.''

The Bears don't find the situation funny. Nobody at Halas Hall has a bad word to say about Urlacher, despite his strong-arm tactics. And even though president Ted Phillips was dismissive of the issue recently -- saying the team was ''talking to his representatives about how to look at his contract and try[ing] to educate them on the value of his deal'' -- the Bears are taking the matter seriously.

It's tricky business for a number of reasons. Urlacher probably has outplayed the deal. He signed it with two years left on his rookie contract, becoming the first defensive player to renegotiate a deal with two years left.

At the time, the salary cap was $75 million, and it has grown by more than $40 million since. Urlacher was an essential piece of the Bears' Super Bowl run in the 2006 season, and he seems to be making the difficult mid-career transition to playing with chronic injury.

Urlacher is respected in the locker room, although his role as a team leader has been overstated -- he's a leader by example who prefers to be one of the guys -- and the notion that players will revolt if he doesn't get paid is flat-out absurd. Players revolt only on an individual basis when they aren't getting paid.

Urlacher will be 30 this season and is coming off the worst year of his career. Despite leading fan voting at his position, he failed to make the Pro Bowl for only the second time (the first was after an injury-shortened 2004 season) and was not among the top five inside linebackers in voting among players and coaches.

He engaged in a strange public-relations showdown with the media -- reportedly out of support for teammate Lance Briggs -- that featured one-word responses and grunted answers to questions, often in front of a backdrop featuring the team logo and the name of an important sponsor.

Moreover, Urlacher has four years left on his contract, and given the uneven nature of his performance last season, depending on how his back was feeling, he might not be able to complete that deal.

The team could call his bluff and wait him out, knowing that he keeps himself in excellent physical condition and is in no danger of showing up overweight or out of shape. Or it could set a dangerous precedent and allow him to force his way into a better deal.

That precedent has been set around the league, however, with wide receivers Steve Smith and Laveranues Coles forcing new deals with the Carolina Panthers and New York Jets, respectively, and defensive end Michael Strahan reportedly close to doing so with the New York Giants.

It's a delicate situation because the Bears don't want to poison Urlacher's relationship with fans while resisting the Machiavellian tactics.