By Vaughn McClureThe relationship between the Bears and NBC is not strained because the team decided not to grant a request for prime-time interviews with Lovie Smith, Jay Cutler and general manager Jerry Angelo, Bears spokesman Scott Hagel said today.
As first reported in the Chicago Sun-Times, Smith and any requested players, including Cutler, will be made available to NBC for standard pre-production meetings Friday with announcers Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth. But no Bears personnel will be on-camera with Bob Costas (right) for NBC's pregame show.
"We have a great relationship with NBC,'' Hagel said. "We're excited to be playing a home game on Sunday Night Football.''
Asked for his reaction, coach Lovie Smith said, "I'm trying to figure out where that all came from. We try to do whatever we can for anyone that's coming in. We've played quite a few Sunday night games, so there's not a whole lot more for us to talk about. We're making our players available right up until game time.
"As far as participating an awful lot right now, it's kind of time for us to play football. We try to do as many interviews as we can during game week. Once you get a little bit closer to it, we're kind of reeling things in a little bit.''
Photo: Bob Costas (Getty Images)
NBC wanted Costas to cover the struggles of both Cutler and the
4-5 Bears as they prepare for the Eagles. The organization did not want
to focus all the attention solely on Cutler, who had sit-down
interviews with NBC for the Denver preseason game and the season opener
at Green Bay (that one with Costas).
"When we had the discussion regarding interview prospects for this week, both sides understood where the other side was coming from,'' Hagel said. "The Bears certainly understood that NBC needed to cover our decline, and we understand their focus on the quarterback. We just felt at this point in our year, what we needed to keep our focus on was playing a good game. That's our goal: to have a great effort on Sunday night. NBC completely understood.''
An NBC spokesman would only say, "Our job is always to tell the story of the event to inform our viewers across the nation."
"When we had the discussion regarding interview prospects for this week, both sides understood where the other side was coming from,'' Hagel said. "The Bears certainly understood that NBC needed to cover our decline, and we understand their focus on the quarterback. We just felt at this point in our year, what we needed to keep our focus on was playing a good game. That's our goal: to have a great effort on Sunday night. NBC completely understood.''
An NBC spokesman would only say, "Our job is always to tell the story of the event to inform our viewers across the nation."
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gpw23: Take some St. Joseph Valium for children. Yer a D@uche! Yeah Chicago has it's problems, so what? At least they're not the Lions, or Tampa Bay, or Oakland, or Cleveland, or ...Yada yada ad nauseum!
The POINT here (No, not that cone on the top of yer head) is that Lovie needs all hands on deck, not up in the booth swappin' spit with Costas while he's handing out game plan notes and blocking assignments. And it's kinda hard to win a REAL NFL game against a REAL NFL opponent if you can't get your signals and strategy ironed out with your Quarterback before he goes onto the field.
Seriously, this should be a No Brainer (perfect for you). Frankly I'm surprised you're so slow on the uptake.
Good job Bears Management. NBC stinks and especially that twerp Costas. I cant stand to even look at him with all that plastic surgery.
Typical...Same old, Same old...
They just don't want to have to answer to the fact that they have an incompetant GM, Off. Coord., and head coach. That they have failed to build around the most capable and talented QB they've had in 25 years.
Now that they realize they don't have their fans fooled, there's no way they'll attempt pulling the same crap over the whole country. Call it what it is, they're "pleading the 5th" against incriminating themselves and the...truth!
Cowards!