Do People Actually Care About Lance Briggs Missing Practice Yesterday For The Opening Of His Restaurant?

(Source) One of Lance Briggs’ longtime teammates is troubled that the veteran linebacker would miss practice six days before the season opener to attend his restaurant’s grand opening in California. Patrick Mannelly, who recently retired after spending the last 16 seasons with the Chicago Bears, knows Briggs, knows coach Marc Trestman and knows how the situation that unfolded Monday might be received in the locker room. “There’s a limited amount of time they have as a unit in meetings and the practice field,” Mannelly said Tuesday morning on the debut of the Spiegel and Mannelly show on WSCR-AM 670.

“I don’t understand why Coach Trestman let him take that day off. The other thing is, today is their day off. Why didn’t he go today? I’m floored. As a teammate, if they missed OTAs for whatever reason—if they had a charity golf tournament—I just didn’t understand that, either. You need to give your full commitment to the team.” Trestman’s decision to excuse Briggs from Monday’s practice is at least a curious one. Seven days before the season-opener against the Bills, Briggs did not work out with a defense that still is trying to jell after some unconvincing exhibition game performances.

That Briggs would skip practice to attend the grand opening of his restaurant in California seems to go against the commitment and leadership-by-example previously shown by the 11-year veteran. When Briggs was recovering from a fractured left shoulder last season, he was a vocal presence during walkthroughs, trying to help rookie linebackers Jon Bostic and Khaseem Greene learn their responsibilities. So maybe there’s more to this story. Trestman said he excused Briggs for personal reasons and declined to elaborate Monday.

So I guess this is a big fake controversy right now that we all need to get fired up about? Lance Briggs missing yesterday’s practice for the opening of his restaurant in California. First of all, as a little frame of reference, Patrick Mannelly just signed on at 670 The Score for the mid-day show. Today was his first official show so it’s not surprising he would either intentionally or unintentionally drum up some mock outrage. My question to everyone else is do we actually care? I’m just having a real hard time getting there. It’s not like Lance Briggs is some rookie learning how to play Defense in the NFL. He knows what he has to do, he knows what is expected of him, he’s been in thousands of hours of practice and film room sessions. Could it have been better timing than week 1 practice? Sure. But the point here is Trestman let him go so Briggs went. Criticizing him after the fact seems a little silly. If Trestman thought this would be a huge detriment to the team I doubt he’d let him skip practice. So what’s the issue here? Lance Briggs, as old as he is getting is not the problem with this Defense, if the Bears lose on Sunday it won’t be because Lance Briggs went to California for 24 hours. If they lose to the Bills they just flat out aren’t a good team, end of story. So Briggs missing one day means absolutely nothing to me.