When rumors start swirling around a team in a tailspin, the cliché you always hear from coaches and players is that they don’t listen to the outside noise, they block out the “distractions.” It was no different for the Bears when they addressed a report that said Matt Nagy had been informed Thursday’s game against the Lions would be his last leading the team.
But in a candid moment after the game, Cole Kmet revealed that wasn’t the case for him.
“I’m not going to lie, it was tough for me,” Kmet said. “A lot in your head after going right from Sunday to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, then playing Thursday. There’s a lot in your head.
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“You don’t know what’s true, what’s not. Then you see things that are true, because you were there for them, and you wonder how those things get out. So there’s a lot of confusion in that sense.”
It may have been even harder for Kmet than the others, because as a Chicagoland native, he had friends blowing him up, asking what was really going on inside Halas Hall.
“Definitely had to shut off the phone this week,” Kmet said. “It was pretty chaotic.”
But Kmet said hearing from team chairman George McCaskey on Wednesday helped him feel better, and more clear-headed going into the game. Beyond that, Kmet also said he and his teammates banded together and isolated themselves as best as they could inside the team hotel.
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“We kind of just hunkered down Wednesday night and put ourselves in a good mindset, and we were able to do the job and get a win.”
The win will give the Bears a brief reprieve from the negative energy that’s surrounded their team over the past several days. But things aren’t going to get any easier. Next up are the 9-2 Cardinals, and the Bears will have to play much better to beat them. We’ll see if the Bears continue to come together, or if Thursday was a blip in their downward spiral.