A Message To Sports Reporters

If you have been following my blog, you are aware that I am huge sports fan. NBA Basketball and NFL Football are by far my favorite. As a result, I end up listening to a lot of sports talk radio. I have always been bothered by a recurring theme on every station I have ever listened to (and I have been a fan since sports talk first debuted in Chicago back in 1992).

This theme popped up a lot last week due to a Chicago Bears related story. It seems that last year, Bears first overall pick turned rookie starting quarterback Caleb Williams worked with an author on a book titled American Kings: A Biography of a Quarterback. I must admit, I have not read the book and don't intend to. i really don't care at all about it since it has zero impact on society or the football field. I just want to see the Bears win and the book has nothing to do with that.

In the book, the author writes about Caleb Williams not wanting to be drafted by the Bears. Williams' father Carl went a step further by saying that he did not want his son drafted by the Bears because Chicago is the place "where quarterbacks go to die". What would make him say such a thing? Is it the fact that a Bears QB has only been on a Pro Bowl team 8 times in the 74 year history of the Pro Bowl. Only 3 of those have come since 1985 and one (Mitch Trubisky) was an injury replacement because every good quarterback was hurt and they needed someone to play in that horrible exhibition game. So that means 2 in the last 40 years. Yikes. Or maybe it is because the Bears have never had a QB throw for 30 touchdowns in a season. Or maybe because they have never had a QB throw for over 4000 yards in a season. They have been around for over 100 years and they are the ONLY team without a 30 TD or 4000 yard passer.

So apparently people are angry at Carl Williams for being... a great dad! I love my kids. If they were good enough to be an NFL quarterback, there is no way I'd want them to end up stuck in Chicago. But alas, this isn't a free market. There is a draft and Carl Williams' son Caleb was drafted by the Bears. And you know what that little whiny "I don't want to play for the Bears" baby did? He played in every freaking game. He played 17 games behind one of the worst offensive lines in the history of the NFL. He was sacked 68 times. His coaches were so bad hat the offensive coordinator was fired after only 9 games and for the first time in history, the Bears fired the head coach before the season even ended. And you know what that little entitled brat did? Yep. He kept playing, working hard and trying to win every game.

And that is why I don't give a rats ass about that book. I learned all I needed to know about Caleb Williams by watching him scrape himself off the turf, try to run a play sent in by a buffoon, and many times turning something into nothing. He never once threw a coach or his horrible lineman under the bus. We was a stand up guy who could of sat and pouted, but he played.

Now here's the thing I hate about sports talk. All this week, the chatter was that Caleb Williams needed to face the media and explain what he was thinking when he spoke to the author of the book. Here's my question: why? He doesn't have to speak to anyone. These players and coaches are not elected officials. They don't need to tell us the truth or actually tell us anything. They have two responsibilities:

1. Be a good member of society who follow the laws.

2. Try to win games.

The book has nothing to do with either of those things, so Williams owes the reporters nothing. They get all bent out of shape that we "deserve" the truth. Ummm we are just sports fans, we only deserve athletes to give an honest effort to win the games we pay to watch. If answering questions about this book would make it more likely the Bears would win, then please for the love of God, get him to talk! But if it is just a distraction that takes him away from studying the playbook, sit down and shut up. Hey sports reporter, you're not that important. If you want to be that important feel free to go to one of the many areas of the world that are in armed conflicts and report on those. This is just sports. Its entertainment, not life or death. Calm down.