It was the scream heard round the NFL. As well as in a whole lot of Chicago living rooms.
The Bears’ Caleb Williams collapsed in a heap without being contacted on a drenched Soldier Field as his team was driving for a potentially game-winning touchdown Sunday. As he fell, he let out a yowl. Fans feared the worst after he was carted off the field, naturally, and social-media speculation abounded. Amateur diagnosticians concluded everything from a torn Achilles tendon to a torn ACL to a torn hamstring.
So when the great news arrived the following day that Williams had “merely” strained his hamstring and was likely to only miss maybe a couple of games, the phony-outrage and ridicule machine revved up fast on social media.
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Amid memes galore, the gist of the online criticism was that Williams was somehow soft for reacting so dramatically in the moment to his injury when it turned out not to be season-ending or something. Naturally, that prompted huffy defenses of Williams from those in Chicago’s sports talk galaxy.
Two days later, the “debate” was still raging.
We’re all for dopey sports beefs waged in good fun as a distraction from the negativity that permeates so much of our national discourse these days.
But judging an athlete’s pain response at the moment of their injury? Inappropriate to say the least.
No one criticizing Williams from the outside knows what he was experiencing nor do they know whether his reaction wasn’t in part frustration at not being able to finish a game which he was on the cusp of winning, despite the Bears’ sorry play throughout much of the day.
And anyone who has watched him play knows that questioning his toughness is absurd. As a rookie, he was sacked 68 times! A dubious Bears franchise record for sure, but he got up each time and played every game that season.
Meanwhile, Jaxson Dart, the New York Giants’ quarterback, limped off the field Monday night with barely a grimace after a crunching hit by two Los Angeles Rams. Word Tuesday afternoon was that he might need surgery. We assume the social-media pain specialists will waste little time with their toughness assessments of the two young quarterbacks by comparing the two contrasting outcomes with their in-the-moment reactions.
These are the kinds of yammerings that in pre-internet times would have occurred in a barroom or a living room, leaving the utterer to embarrass himself only in the company of those around him. Now, once posted, these insta-reactions and hot takes are there for all the online world to see.
These are extraordinary athletes who put their bodies and even their future health on the line for our entertainment. Bottom line is that most regular human beings absorbing the sort of punishment Williams and other pro football players experience on the regular would find themselves in traction.
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