Coach Lovie Smith and general manager Jerry Angelo each agreed to contract extensions with the Bears on Wednesday night after a day of meetings with team President Ted Phillips.
Smith was given a four-year extension through 2011 and Angelo a five-year extension through 2013, the Bears announced. No financial details were provided and efforts to reach Smith’s agent, Frank Bauer, were unsuccessful.
But sources estimated Smith’s extension is worth $22 million in new money.
Added to his 2007 salary of $1.45 million, the five-year average of $4.69 million jumps him from the lowest-paid coach in the league into the top 10.
Smith and Phillips met at team headquarters in Lake Forest. Bauer was in telephone contact for the discussions.
Angelo does not have an agent and said last week his extension was close to completion and he was hoping to announce it at the same time as Smith’s.
Smith was asking for a $5 million-a-year contract in line with the current market. The new deal won’t be worth that until 2008.
For the coming season, Smith reportedly will receive a $2.05 million raise for a total of $3.5 million, which probably won’t get the fourth-year coach into the top 10 but catapults him from last into the top half of the league.
The deal for Smith ends weeks of speculation over whether he would coach as a lame duck in 2007 and leave the club as a free agent after compiling the second-best record in the league over the last two seasons.
The only coach who had a better combined record in 2005 and 2006 was Tony Dungy of the Colts, who beat the Bears in the Super Bowl 24 days ago.
Before Wednesday, Bauer and Phillips had not talked since Feb. 19 and Bauer characterized the two sides as so far apart it would take an “unforeseen breakthrough” to come to agreement.
Smith was more positive, saying he was confident a “fair” agreement could be reached.
What Smith and Bauer considered fair was made more complicated when the Atlanta Falcons signed Bobby Petrino out of the University of Louisville for $4.8 million a year.
Before that, the Bears could cite coaches such as Tampa Bay’s Jon Gruden, who won the Super Bowl after the 2002 season and is making an estimated $4.75 million, or Philadelphia’s Andy Reid, who lost the Super Bowl after the 2004 season and is making an estimated $4.2 million.
Phillips and the Bears were widely criticized for taking so much time with Smith, who had sought an extension a year ago after getting the Bears back to the playoffs. Phillips said he liked what he saw but wanted to see another year after the Bears lost their playoff game to Carolina.
Phillips then delayed negotiations after the Bears compiled a 13-3 regular-season record, preferring to watch the playoffs. After the Bears got to the Super Bowl, Smith and Bauer thought Phillips would consummate the deal quickly.
The main sticking point appears to have been Phillips’ insistence that the extension honor the existing contract because the Bears argued they already had locked Smith into 2007. Smith and Bauer would have preferred the Bears to tear up the existing contract and start over, as the Panthers did after last season with John Fox, giving him a $25 million, five-year package and putting him into the coveted $5 million-a-year club.
Those members (and their estimated salaries) are believed to include Seattle’s Mike Holmgren ($8 million), Denver’s Mike Shanahan ($6 million), Washington’s Joe Gibbs ($5.6 million), Baltimore’s Brian Billick ($5.6 million), New England’s Bill Belichick (over $5 million), Tennessee’s Jeff Fisher ($5.4 million), Fox ($5 million) and Dungy ($5 million).
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dpierson@tribune.com