It figures.

Now that Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs has a long-term deal that presumably has resulted in the removal of the stick from his sphincter, said stick apparently has been shifted to another linebacker on the team.

Middle linebacker Brian Urlacher plans to miss the first day of voluntary workouts, according to the Chicago Tribune.  Urlacher told the Trib of his plans, which arise in part from an “unresolved contract situation,” as the newspaper describes it.

Urlacher is signed through 2011, and he is due to earn a base salary of $3.95 million in 2008.  But the market has changed dramatically since Urlacher signed his long-term deal, and he presumably wants his contract adjusted to reflect the new realities of a salary cap that increases by $7 million or so per year.

Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, players may not be forced to attend or participate in voluntary workouts.  Indeed, the teams are not permitted to say or do anything suggesting that the sessions aren’t totally voluntary.

But since the NFLPA generally has remained inactive over the years while teams have said and done plenty to indicate that the sessions are anything but voluntary, guys like Vaughan McClure of the Tribune believe that it is appropriate for a team like the Bears to “briefly demote” players who have not participated in voluntary workouts.

It’s not McClure’s fault; the fact that he thinks such action is permissible results directly from the union’s chronic failure to take a stand against such practices.

With the owners poised to pull the plug two years early on the current CBA and then to try to squeeze the players into taking a smaller overall piece of the pie, it’ll be interesting to see if the union finally decides to draw a line in the sand.