Kyle Long knew the day he was drafted — his father Howie and brother Chris let him know in no uncertain terms that he was coming to one of the great sports situations in the country — that he wanted to be a Chicago Bear, not just for his rookie contract, but long, long after that.
So when the Bears, two years before they needed to. stepped up with a four-year contract extension that makes him the highest-paid guard in the NFL, the result was putting him exactly where he wanted to be for his football life.
“I think it’s important to understand how these things work and the longer you wait the uglier those things get,” Long said on Wednesday. “I’ve known since Day 1 that I wanted to be a Chicago Bear for life and get an opportunity to play for the best franchise in football in the best city in America. When the talk started about it, I said [to the Bears and his agent], ‘Look, I don’t want to be a part of the talks, but what I do want you guys to understand is that I want to be here forever and get it done,’ so that’s what they did.”
And the reasons behind the early extension are especially noteworthy, and they go deeper than simply Long’s Pro Bowl talents.
[MORE BEARS: Bears make Kyle Long's extension official]
A little more than a year ago tight end Martellus Bennett staged an offseason stay-away from most of the Bears’ offseason program. His quest was a new contract despite still having two years to go on the one he’d signed in 2013. The Bears demurred. more than that, they traded him away to New England after a scratchy season coming off his 2014 Pro Bowl year.
This week the Bears opted in favor of a massive contract extension for a player with two years remaining on his deal, putting the final touches on a deal. Long, selected to the Pro Bowl in each of his first three seasons, was under contract through 2017 and now is on course to be a Bear through the 2021 season.
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The difference was evident in the statement of GM Ryan Pace, that Long “is a big piece of the foundation we are building and we only expect him to continue to get better. We are excited to announce this long-term commitment to Kyle."
The difference also has been evident when coach John Fox has said on more than one occasion that he’d “love to have 11 Kyle Longs.”
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Bennett, like Brandon Marshall before him and a handful of others, had established that he was not “a piece of the foundation.” Indeed, it is unclear if he will be a piece of the New England foundation, given that the Patriots haven’t made a move to extend Bennett beyond his one remaining year (2016), but that’s another story.
The Bears used their franchise tag on wide receiver Alshon Jeffery this offseason but passed on a long-term deal. Whether for health or any other reason, Jeffery’s place within the foundation is still being sorted out.
By comparison, the Bears extended Brian Urlacher in 2008 while he still had years to run on a seven-year contract extension he’d signed while his own rookie contract was still running. GM Jerry Angelo, as Pace did with Long, considered Urlacher part of the Bears foundation then and made the corresponding contract statement.
“It’s always nice to have security,” Long said. “But the other side of things, being aware of how much I care about these guys [teammates] is important for the guys upstairs and to have that reciprocated and shown on paper is very important to me. “