Make-believe

I open the Sunday sports’ section this morning and what do I see? Why, a story about the Bears, of course. Afterall, the NFL is a twelve-month-a-year enterprise, and this is Chicago. Brad Biggs’ story in the Tribune started with an informative-enough headline, Some heavy lifting ahead for [Bears’ GM Ryan] Pace due to salary cap.” Reading on, I learned that the Saints are “mired in salary-cap hell,” so they’re unlikely to pursue Seattle’s Russell Wilson as a replacement at quarterback for the likely-retiring Drew Brees. In comparison, the Bears are in more of a salary-cap purgatory, with Pace possibly asking players to restructure their contracts as a way to get out of it. What a soap opera. I no longer say baseball operates free of a cap. There is one, both soft and real in the form of the luxury tax. The thing is, it’s a (un)healthy minority of teams that reach the threshold each year. The Cubs did it two straight seasons recently and now act like paupers looking for a handout. That’s on them. Every team in every sport should be free to spend as much money as it wants, just as all the players in all the professional sports should demand an end to salary caps. Playing under one is no different than being stuck in a soap opera. It’s just another form of make-believe.