For the first time since being involved in a physical altercation at sports media startup CHGO earlier this year, former Chicago Bears offensive lineman Olin Kreutz discussed the incident.
In May, Kreutz grabbed Bears reporter Adam Hoge by the neck at the CHGO offices during a staff meeting and was soon after fired by the company over the attack. As per his recent conversation with the Chicago Sun-Times, Kreutz has said he won’t be returning to his job at NBC Sports Chicago for the Bears postgame show either.
“From what [NBC Sports Chicago] told me, there are workers in there who are uneasy about me coming in,” Kreutz said. “I said, well, if people don’t feel good about me being there, I obviously don’t want to be there. From my point of view, how could that change? I know this work was fun, but it’s not like I need to be doing analyst work.”
Kreutz acknowledged he apologized to the people at CHGO, but like his colleagues at NBC Sports Chicago, they similarly weren’t comfortable with the former Bears offensive lineman returning to the office.
“There were some people in their building — obviously, I don’t blame them — that weren’t comfortable with me being there anymore,” Kreutz admitted. “I have my side of the story of what I thought happened. You could tell by what I put on Twitter what I thought happened there; it just inflamed the situation.”
The tweet Kreutz referred to was a quote from Mike Tyson that said, “Social media made y’all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it,” which certainly didn’t read like a sign of remorse.
Kreutz also told the Chicago Sun-Times he spoke to Hoge privately after grabbing him by the neck and claims the CHGO employee wanted to continue their podcast together.
“I said no,” Kreutz claimed of Hoge’s offer. “I thought my time was done there. I thought that that was enough for me already.”
Kreutz was right. His time was done at CHGO and as it turns out, his time is also done at NBC Sports Chicago. CHGO announced Kreutz was fired the day the incident with Hoge occurred, but the former Bears offensive lineman refutes that detail.
“I had already decided that my time was up at CHGO just because of some things that I thought were unprofessional in the way they ran their business. That was my decision,” Kreutz said. “And like I told my kids, man, you do something like that, you pay the penalty. You take the punishment, and then you try to become a better person and try to learn from every situation.”
Which sounds kind of like a ‘you can’t fire me, I quit!’ type of response from Kreutz.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Kreutz has one remaining media job as an analyst with 670 The Score. But the Audacy-owned radio station has yet to determine Kreutz’s fate, despite being nearly three months removed from the incident.
About Brandon Contes
Brandon Contes is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. He previously helped carve the sports vertical for Mediaite and spent more than three years with Barrett Sports Media. Send tips/comments/complaints to bcontes@thecomeback.com