Bears quarterback Erik Kramer usually seems unflappable, which he was when coach Dave Wannstedt removed him from Sunday’s game. But he was angered in a radio interview Thursday afternoon when WSCR-AM’s Dan McNeil repeatedly questioned why TV cameras caught Kramer smiling after being taken out of the game.
Kramer said he was “trying to take it in stride” because “I didn’t want to go sulk on the sidelines,” adding if anyone has “got a problem with it, screw ’em.”
When McNeil berated him for saying that, Kramer replied, “That’s chicken on your part.” Although “there was nothing funny” about getting pulled from a losing game, Kramer said, he didn’t have to defend his sideline demeanor.
“If someone’s got a problem with the way you walk down the street, what are you doing to say?” he said. “Apologize? The heck with it.”
The exchange went on for nearly nine minutes, ending with Kramer accusing McNeil and co-host Terry Boers, who was trying to be conciliatory, of ambushing him with an unimportant unexpected question.
“Did you get enough dirt here? . . . I hope you had a good time,” said Kramer, on the phone from the Bears’ practice site.
Callers afterward were divided in support of Kramer, who said no other reporters asked about his smiling; or McNeil, who said it “rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.”
