Chicago Bears: Brian Urlacher, Jay Cutler Deny Rift
Published by Gene Chamberlain on July 30, 2009
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
At least Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher kept his sense of humor.
In a rare lengthy interview session with the media at the outset of Bears camp in Bourbonnais, IL, Urlacher on Thursday not only denied having a disagreement with quarterback Jay Cutler, but joked about it.
Vikings receiver Bobby Wade said Urlacher called Cutler a five-letter word referring to cats. Urlacher said when Cutler heard talk about their supposed rift for the first time, the quarterback phoned the middle linebacker.
“He (Cutler) called me and I said, ‘what’s up (short for pussycat), what are you doing?’”
Bears players were bewildered over the situation.
“I got a couple calls from my teammates saying ‘what happened, did you guys get into a fight?’ ” Urlacher said. “I said ‘I don’t think we got in a fight.’
“Obviously it blew up so fast that everybody was just kind of taken aback. And some guys thought it really did happen that we had a fight this summer. It’s really crazy to me.”
After media laughter subsided, Urlacher rolled his eyes and added, “It’s so dumb to me that this even got to this point but it did and then here we are.”
Coach Lovie Smith, Cutler, and Urlacher all denied any bad feelings going on between their offensive and defensive leaders, and all blamed it on the imagination of Wade, a former Bear and friend of Urlacher’s.
“Yeah, Bobby is a friend of mine; I mean, he still is a friend of mine,” Urlacher said. “He’s just trying to throw something out before training camp and I don’t think it worked. What do you think?
“Bobby is still my friend. We’ll still have a good time on Sundays when we play him twice a year.”
So why would Wade invent such rumors if there’s nothing to it? Urlacher saw an opportunity to get in a dig at the Vikings, and at the same time kind of summed up the Bears’ own struggles at the position in the Kyle Orton-Rex Grossman era.
“I don’t know,” Urlacher said. “Maybe he’s jealous because we have a good quarterback now. I have no idea.”
Whether nothing at all happened will probably never be known, but the Bears’ attempt to get their stories straight before they met with the media failed.
First Cutler said Urlacher phoned him to straighten out the mess. Then Urlacher said Cutler phoned him to straighten out the mess.
Rumors about Urlacher and Cutler spanned the entire spectrum from an all-out fistfight in the locker room or a nightclub to the two having harsh words for each other at Halas Hall.
Cutler called it a case of rumors gone wild.
“It got legs and it started running a little bit,” he said. “But we’re excited for camp and we’re not going to put any more time or effort into this issue.”
When players reported for camp, Smith addressed actual football issues:
- Michael Vick is not someone the Bears are interested in even though their own backup QB, Caleb Hanie, hasn’t played in a regular-season game.
- Danieal Manning will be with starters at free safety in the first practice while Kevin Payne and Craig Steltz will battle for the starting strong safety spot.
- Zack Bowman will be with starters at cornerback while Charles Tillman recovers from back surgery.
- Bears receivers have come under criticism, but Smith likes his inexperienced group and sees no need to pursue a free agent like Plaxico Burress. “We have some guys who are eager to kind of squash some of this talk that has been going on about the receivers. We have confidence in them. I think after 10 days you’re going to like them a lot more than you do now.”
