It looks like Brandon Marshall will have some talking points for this week’s edition of “Inside The NFL” on Showtime.
An offshoot of the Bears skid had Marshall coming under fire Sunday morning on NFL Network for traveling on Tuesdays, his off-day, to work as an analyst on the show.
Former San Francisco and Detroit coach Steve Mariucci thinks the Bears receiver needs to do something else on Tuesdays–like rest.
“As his head coach before the season started, I would have sat him down and gave my expectations for him,” Mariucci said. “I would address the Inside the NFL obligation. First of all, he’s very good at it; he’s going to be doing this when he’s done. I would say Tuesdays are for a couple things. Number one, it’s a rest day; travel is not restful, it’s difficult. And the other reason is for treatment. If you’re hurt, you have a knee injury, I need you in the training room getting treatment – mandatory treatment. I would try to discourage him from those obligations.”
Later in the morning, Kurt Warner and Michael Irvin debated the Marshall issue in a “Players Only” segment. Note: Irvin occasionally appears on “Inside The NFL” with Marshall.
Warner opened the discussion: “The bigger issue here I believe is he goes into the locker room and he calls people out or calls the team out and says this is unacceptable. And then you know what everybody is going to say; ‘He’s going to get on a plane and fly to New York and do his TV show.’ You’re going to go, ‘If this is a team issue, why aren’t you here on our days off? Why aren’t we meeting together? Why aren’t we figuring out what we need to do to fix this problem?’ You have to make the team first right?”
More from Warner: “This is unacceptable. So if it’s unacceptable, do we continue to do what we’ve been doing to make it unacceptable? Or do we have to step up and go I have to do something different. I’m a quarterback – I have to spend more time in the meeting room, I have to get together with my guys. I have to figure out what I’m doing wrong and address it as opposed to going, ‘I’m playing well enough so you guys all address it and you guys get better and I’ll show up on Sunday and do what I’ve been doing.’”
Irvin: “What we’re saying here is when you’re losing, I don’t care how you’re playing we have to now start getting into your off time. His off time is when he travels. So I stop doing the show and now I’m home and we’re still losing. Sooner or later you’re going to say I can’t sleep at home with my family on Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. What else do you take from a person?”
Warner: “The bottom line for me is I have no problem what anybody does on their off time. Go do your commercials, go do your TV show, but he’s the one that called them out. He’s the one that made the issue that what we’re doing right now is unacceptable. If you say it’s unacceptable, you have to be the first one to change. That’s what leaders do. We don’t say it’s unacceptable, you guys go change; I’m good, you guys go change because this unacceptable. Leaders step up and make a change and do something.”
Here is the video of the segment.
Marshall is part of the problem but not the real reason. Ownership of the Chicago Bears is a joke. One title since 1963 is all you need to know. Dysfunction starts from the very top down…through a G.M. who never held that post before to a head coach who never had that job in the NFL before.