Bear Digest

No more Mr. Nice Guy from Ben Johnson for halftime questions?

The debate rages even today about the brief sideline interview between Ben Johnson and CBS sideline reporter Aditi Kinkhabwala.
Gene Chamberlain|
What Ben Johnson says to his players is one thing but something he told a sideline reporter has sparked controversy.
What Ben Johnson says to his players is one thing but something he told a sideline reporter has sparked controversy. | David Banks-Imagn Images

In this story:

Chicago Bears

First, there was sideline reporting, and then networks decided to push the envelope and interview coaches briefly before they took their teams to the locker room for halftime or as they came out of halftime.

Some sports, namely basketball, hockey and baseball, even like to do it during the game itself.

Most of these are fairly cut and dried, almost obligatory softballs lobbed and hit. However, there is always the possibility a coach is not going to be in a good mood for the interview or will take offense at the question asked or how it's asked, and this occurred at Sunday's 25-24 win by coach Ben Johnson's Bears over the Raiders.

Now, there will be so much more interest in what Bears coach Ben Johnson says just before halftime or after it following the controversy he created with comments to CBS Sports' Aditi Kinkhabwala after his comment to her stirred social media controversy.

"OK, so what did you tell them to get things going?" was what Kinkhabwala asked Johnson after he described some of their problems in the first half, as the players ran out of the locker room trailing 14-9.

"That it wasn't our brand of football, we're capable of a lot more,"

Johnson said. "We're hitting the reset button here at halftime and we're going to come back and establish our identity here in the second half."

After Johnson’s answer, Kinkhabwala said "Do you need to change what you're doing?"

Johnson looked at her in an unfriendly way and shot back "I don't know, you think so?" Then he added with a somewhat dismissive tone, "We're going to be just fine."

The problem was what Kinkhabwala said didn't sound like a question. The word "do" at the beginning of her question wasn't clearly annunciated and the way she said this made it sound like a statement: "You need to change what you're doing."

Of course Johnson might take offense to some sort of lecturing. But she was asking a question and it just needed to be done more clearly considering all of the noise at an indoor stadium at the time.

The pro-sideline reports and anti-sideline questioning sides all came  out on social media after the exchange.

Dave Portnoy of Bar Stool Sports, interviewing former Raiders coach Jon Gruden about it, got the pro-coach response you'd expect.

"For Ben Johnson not to take that microphone and slam it on the ground, it's a real credit to him," Gruden said. "Some of these broadcast teams should think clearer, 'What do we want to ask the coach?' And, "What do we think the coach is going to say?' 

"You think we're (coaches) going to go 'Hey we're going to run an onside kick to start the third quarter and we're going to run flip right double-X jet 36 counter naked waggle at 7 on the next play?' You're never going to get a technical answer. So why do the interview? Sometimes more access is bad access.

And what access you do get to people I think  you've got to do a lot better job than that asking questions."

Johnson is an intense coach and always has been fine with reporters' questions on a daily basis.

It would be difficult to think he'll become testy like this in the future because things are not always going to be as easy for him with the media as they are in his first year.

Then again, most of the questions he normally gets asked are obviously phrased like questions.

What's certain is sideline interviews for Bears games will be watched more critically by everyone.

More Chicago Bears News

X: BearsOnSI

Published
Gene Chamberlain
GENE CHAMBERLAIN

Gene Chamberlain has covered the Chicago Bears full time as a beat writer since 1994 and prior to this on a part-time basis for 10 years. He covered the Bears as a beat writer for Suburban Chicago Newspapers, the Daily Southtown, Copley News Service and has been a contributor for the Daily Herald, the Associated Press, Bear Report, CBS Sports.com and The Sporting News. He also has worked a prep sports writer for Tribune Newspapers and Sun-Times newspapers.