Urlacher Cares Not For Your Opinions, Fans And Media (That's Probably For The Best)

By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 17, 2012 8:45PM

One of the Bears not taking Sunday’s loss to the Packers and the team’s diminishing playoff hopes well is linebacker Brian Urlacher. Last seen straining his hamstring while breathing the vapor trails of Seattle’s Russell Wilson, a frustrated Urlacher lashed out in defense of head coach Lovie Smith on WFLD-TV’s Sunday night postgame show.

Urlacher had some choice words for people criticizing Smith.

"Two of the people I don't care about: fans or media," Urlacher said. "They can say what they want to about our head coach, about our players. ... It does bother me. They don't know what they're talking about, obviously.

"I know there are a lot of experts in the media, a bunch of smart guys out there who know exactly what they're talking about all the time. They don't know what they're talking about. Lovie is the head coach of this football team and hopefully will be for a long time."

It would be easy to chalk Urlacher’s defense of Smith as the churlish words of a “warrior” facing the end of a Hall of fame career who may have lied one time too many on a concussion baseline test. But Urlacher makes a fine point that’s obscured with his bullheaded comments.

Many of the same fans and media who are now calling for Smith’s job were touting his “stoic” leadership skills when the Bears rolled to a 7-1 start to the season. This is why we say Bears Nation makes the rabid football fans of Friday Night Lights seem rational, by comparison. Urlacher isn’t disrespecting the fans here; he’s simply offering his opinion, one with which we tend to agree.

If the Bears were to listen to what fans had to say, they’d still be running the T formation while Mike Ditka acted like a fool on the sideline and the corpse of George Halas made personnel decisions. This Bears team, to quote Denny Green, are who we thought they were—an aging team with major flaws that’s capable of .500 ball.