(670 The Score) The NBC broadcast’s framing of the Bears’ quarterback situation on Sunday Night Football was bizarre, to say the least.
As 670 The Score midday host Laurence Holmes put it, the narrative should’ve been that Bears starting quarterback Justin Fields was sidelined by a thumb injury and that rookie backup Tyson Bagent had played admirably filling in for him a week prior in the Bears’ win over the Raiders.
Instead, it morphed into something entirely more significant in nature – a “bus tossing” of Fields, as Holmes termed it.
“They treated it as, ‘There might be a new sheriff in town,’” Holmes said.
The 23-year-old Bagent struggled in the Bears’ 30-13 loss to the Chargers, going 25-of-37 for 232 yards and two interceptions. He posted a 62.0 passer rating. It marked the second straight game that Fields missed after he dislocated his right thumb in the Bears’ loss to the Vikings on Oct. 15.
The criticism of Fields that came from play-by-play announcer Mike Tirico and color analyst Cris Collinsworth was driven by the Bears’ “back-stabbing whisper campaign,” fellow Score midday host Dan Bernstein said.
“That’s the point – they don’t make this stuff up,” Bernstein said. “The story is this stuff, the whispers, the, ‘Hey, it’d be nice if Justin could do that.’ They’re telling you who they would prefer to coach. They would much rather have somebody (Bagent) who could run their stuff, get the ball out, make their reads rather than have to figure out how to best use the talents of a unicorn (in Fields)."
Bernstein then got really fired up.
“I’m just sick of the big picture of what’s going on here,” Bernstein said. “I’m sick about it. If you don’t want to coach Justin Fields, if that’s too much for you, if you can’t handle him, then you suck as a coach. Bring in some other people to do it. That’s your damn problem. This guy (Fields) called out the coaches earlier in the year and he said, ‘Look, I’m overloaded with stuff, I’ve got too much on my plate here, I want to get out there and play the kind of game I’m capable of playing.’ What is it he said (was the trouble)? He said, ‘Coaching.’ And then they made him apologize for it. They made him apologize for finally publicly saying, ‘Screw it, these coaches are messing with me, they’re trying to ask me to do stuff that I’m not comfortable doing.’ And he said it.
“And now, they just ignore the fact that he’s hurt. And the moment that they get their chance, the moment (the Bears) get to national TV, then they start that little back-stabbing whisper campaign. It sucks. It sucks. If you don’t want to coach him, get out. Kevin Warren, Ryan Poles, whatever it is, don’t make this mistake again. Whoever the next guy is … I feel terrible for what happened to Justin Fields in this.
“This is dirty. It’s ugly. It’s ugly. It’s ugly. The overtones are ugly. The ass covering is ugly. And that’s why a lot of it pissed me off.”