Bears safety Eddie Jackson said he hadn’t heard what Dan Hampton said, then smiled when it was relayed to him.
“Shout out to Dan Hampton,” he said with a smile Thursday. “I dunno — if that’s his opinion, that’s his opinion.”
On his “Hamp and O’B” postgame show with Ed O’Bradovich on WGN, Hampton — the Pro Football Hall of Famer and outspoken analyst — said that Jackson “is playing like a clown” after “not tackling and blowing coverages in the end zone.”
“If Eddie starts on Sunday, that tells me you must not be trying to win,” Hampton said.
Hampton’s comments didn’t seem to bother Jackson.
“We gotta go out there and we’re gonna play,” Jackson said. “Like I said, just stay over there. You can talk bad, but when things are going good, stay on that side.”
Players being criticized on local radio is nothing new, but it’s not often it comes from a Hall of Famer. Hampton was irate after Sunday’s game, saying on his typically raucous show that the Bears “made a mockery out of (coach Matt) Eberflus’ so-called theory, the H.I.T.S. theory” and calling receiver Chase Claypool a “disgrace.”