When your comment is so easily predictable, it makes it pretty worthless.

I don't pretend to know how we get from "two missed calls" to "Bears know Rosenhaus's phone records," but in the absence of any other reported evidence I'm left to believe that we did actually go from step one to step two. I think the Bears had reason to be worried about Briggs, and it has been reported that the 49ers and Bears had previously had brief discussions about a trade involving Briggs that fizzled almost as soon as they started. The Bears may have been doing nothing more than making a move that would keep interest at large away from Briggs - and that got out of hand in the supple hands of power-meister Roger Goodell, they may have had better reasons than I can see for being worried about the 49ers specifically - therefore acting rightly, or they might have just been doing something completely irrational - therefore acting wrongly.

Other than trade talks that went nowhere, I'm not sure what the Bears had to worry about from the Niners. Also quoted from the articles I pointed to:

"Why would the 49ers want to pay a ton of money to somebody who essentially plays the same position as Patrick Willis? And, certainly, why would they break the rules to expedite the process of over-paying somebody who would throw the club's entire salary structure out of whack?"

And from a third and fourth article on the subject from the same source:

"The Bears re-signed Briggs, and the 49ers never made any attempt to sign him once the free-agent signing period began."

"'I think it's maneuvering by an organization trying to find the best way to keep their guy,' (49ers GM) McCloughan said on Feb. 28."

It's also reported that the reason the 49ers gave to the commissioner for the phone calls was to talk to Rosenhaus about re-signing Taylor Jacobs, which makes absolutely no sense if it's true (and if it's false, for that matter). I won't deny that the 49ers' reported side of things in this appears to make about as little sense as the Bears' reported side of things. Why were the 49ers interested in Briggs at all? Why did the Bears make a fuss when the 49ers made no attempt to sign Briggs in the offseason? Why did both teams even start talking about a trade that wouldn't have been permitted by league rules to begin with?

The whole thing makes little sense from a lot of angles. I think when Maiocco says "There's enough gray area in this one to leave a lot of room for interpretation," he's pretty much hit the nail on the head.

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I'll step away from my "Argument's Advocate" stance here (it's not really a Devil's Advocate stance), and say that the way I personally read things is that the Bears pressed the issue with tampering for no other reason than to take leverage away from any other possible suitors in contract talks. If the Bears were going to be aggressive about the 49ers, after all, they'd logically be aggressive about other teams trying to get into more serious contract talks, which would in turn make it less attractive for other teams to make their approach. I think that makes sense. It's a little underhanded and political (but isn't that redundant?), but it's actual strategy. It applies some sense to what is otherwise a nonsense situation. From that step - which I believe should have been harmless the way it was intended - Goodell found an actual convenient goat for his cheating crackdown and blew the whole situation out of hand.

I am annoyed that the Bears pushed the issue as hard as they did. It doesn't make sense that they'd make such a big deal about it, when a regular sized deal would have been perfectly sufficient to keep other teams at bay. But I personally am probably 80% dropping this square on Goodell's shoulders and 15% on the Bears not letting it go when they could have, and 5% on the 49ers just plain mishandling their defense.

My "Argument's Advocate" stance is the one I've been playing up - the one that deals not with my opinion but rather with what appears to be the prevailing topic of discussion between our communities: Why be mad at the Bears? So when I've been taking that stance I've been focusing on the Bears and not the league. My personal opinion is slanted very heavily toward league failure, though.

From pretty much all angles it's a completely ridiculous situation, though. Neither team should have been in the positions they ended up in, and the league should have found some more tangible fish to fry.