Longtime Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs has decided to call it an NFL career - probably. After seven consecutive Pro Bowls, 12 professional seasons and one Super Bowl appearance, Briggs announced this week that he had played his final down in the NFL, assuming no desperate team comes to him with a lucrative last-gasp contract offer for 2015.
''If somebody called me and they said, 'Hey Lance, we'd like you to come play football,' I'm gonna say I'm happily gonna retire,'' Briggs said, while appearing on the Wednesday afternoon's CSN Chicago telecast of the Cubs game, via Fox Sports. ''And if they said 'Well, Lance, you know we're gonna offer you this,' I'm gonna say 'Well, there's a good chance you're gonna have a new football player.'''
Briggs, a former third-round pick out of Arizona in the 2013 NFL Draft, was, at one time, part of a linebacking pair with Brian Urlacher which paced a Bears defense that routinely among the best in the league. In recent seasons though, Briggs has struggled to stay healthy and despite missing just four total games from the 2003 season to 2012, Briggs managed just eight appearances for Chicago last year.
Briggs may not officially made a retirement announcement, bus CSN went ahead and announced that Briggs will serve as a studio analyst for their pre- and post-game coverage shows of the Bears.
