Oops.

NFL players don’t start collecting their regular salaries until Week 1. But the NFL starts handing down the regular fines as soon as the preseason starts.

The latest player to learn that painful lesson—that you can actually make negative income during the preseason—is Bears running back Garrett Wolfe. And for Wolfe, that’s an especially painful lesson, because he doesn’t even have any assurance that he’ll collect a regular-season salary this year.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Wolfe was fined $7,500 for a horse-collar tackle on Raiders kick returner Rock Cartwright in Saturday’s preseason game. And the Tribune also reports that the Bears are making it known to other teams that Wolfe is available in a trade. When a player is being shopped in August, that’s usually a pretty good sign that the team is thinking about releasing him in September.

So Wolfe is no lock to make the Bears—or to play in the NFL in 2010 at all. But if he does get an NFL paycheck this year, the first one will be $7,500 lighter.

I knind of expected Wolfe to be on the bubble from the beginning. And if he gets cut, I don’t see any other team signing him either...except maybe as a special teams player.

He can play a full season with the indoor team. That should cover the fine.