It has been said by many wise sports fans that wins have a thousand fathers and that losses are orphans, so it isn’t surprising that Lamarr Houston isn’t feeling much love after the Chicago Bears blew a 21-7 lead and lost Sunday to the Carolina Panthers.
After the loss, Houston took to Twitter to not only compliment fans who were willing to weather the storm with the team, but also to take to task the ones that were critical of the team’s effort in defeat:
Where are my real �� fans???the ones who don't waver during the storm the tough ones?!?!? Those r the ones we need the rest of u can eat dirt — lamarr houston (@Hupernikao9s) October 6, 2014
This tweet presumably was triggered by fans tweeting at him after the game, so there are several ways to look at this. Yes, Houston only has six tackles and zero sacks so far this season, but he wasn’t exactly given a big contract in the offseason to get to the quarterback. He was brought in to help stop the run, which the Bears failed to do last season. This year, they are a lot better, currently ranking 16th in the league in rushing yards per game allowed, a far cry from last season’s dismal finish.
Even though chastising Houston is probably misdirection of anger on the part of Bears fans, his comment isn’t exactly well-advised. With the amount of money the team has spent on new contracts for this season, expectations were understandably high. Complaining about a lack of fan support isn’t likely to endear him to anyone, and if anything will only increase the scrutiny that he and the rest of the team are under.
With that being said, it’s not like Bears fans haven’t been through this rodeo before. Earlier this year Lance Briggs criticized fans for going after Chris Conte both with their vocal opposition at games and with their contempt for him on social media. Brian Urlacher was also notorious during his time with the Bears for lashing out at fans, saying that he didn’t care about their opinions during his final season with the team.
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While not on the same level as the conflict between players and media, the relationship between players and fans will always have a bit of an adversarial edge to it in times of turmoil, and this was just another example of that fact.
