Chicago Bears: 5 must-know facts regarding Roquan Smith’s holdout
By Ryan Heckman
With the Chicago Bears and Roquan Smith currently at a stalemate in contract negotiations, here are a few things you should know.
Training camp is now over and the Chicago Bears are still without their first selection in the 2018 NFL Draft, linebacker Roquan Smith. If you are reading this, you likely know quite a bit about the situation already.
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Smith is amidst a holdout, standing side by side with his agency, CAA. At first, we thought we knew why Smith was holding out — more on that later. Now, can we really be sure? Again, more on that later.
There are a lot of facts, opinions and history to take into consideration when analyzing this situation.It’s a battle. It’s ugly. It’s nasty. It’s bloody — figuratively, of course. But, it is indeed getting more and more disastrous by the day.
The obvious implications say that Smith missing all of training camp is a lose-lose scenario for both he and the Bears. The defense is missing an enormous piece they thought would be there by Week 1. Now, who knows if he’ll be there that Sunday night to take on the Green Bay Packers? This could last much longer than anyone originally thought.
For those who might not know enough, or want to know more, I did what I could to put together a few key points to take into consideration when looking at the holdout overall. Without taking sides (for the most part), take a gander at five things you must know when it comes to Smith’s holdout.