Matt Forte: Brandon Marshall didn't hold himself accountable with Bears

ByJeff Dickerson ESPN logo
Thursday, August 13, 2015

CHICAGO -- Chicago Bears running back Matt Forte responded to Brandon Marshall's comments about Jay Cutler by saying Marshall sometimes failed to hold himself accountable while a member of the Bears.

"I don't think that was the case where everyone was held accountable [last year]. I don't see how he can say that," Forte said on The Rich Eisen Show.

"Sometimes Brandon didn't hold himself accountable."

Forte said that former head coach Marc Trestman's willingness to allow Marshall to make frequent in-season trips to New York to film Showtime's "Inside the NFL" became a source of friction to some in the organization.

"I didn't have an issue with it as long as he got back in time, or took care of his body and came to play every Sunday," Forte said. "I guess a lot of people had issue with that and thought his mind wasn't on football first.

"I think if a coach didn't like that [Marshall was going to New York], his best bet was to come out and say that, and be able to express that to him. And at that point, I don't think it was really expressed to him to not do that or continue to do that. That's a tough call on that one. I don't think coach [Marc] Trestman held him accountable either on that aspect, so we had a lot of accountability issues going on last year."

Marshall, who Chicago traded to the New York Jets in the offseason, said last week on ESPN's First Take that he was the only person on the Bears that held Cutler accountable.

"There is a culture in the league that you keep everything in-house," Marshall said. "But for me last year, I felt like, when we are going on 10 years -- nine, 10 years in the league -- it's time to get it. I felt like I was the only one in the organization that had the 'huevos' to hold [Cutler] accountable. It didn't go the way I wanted it to go."

Cutler shrugged off Marshall's comments during an interview Friday with ESPN 1000's "Waddle and Silvy Show."

"Anytime you get traded or moved to a team, there's going to be some issues you are going to deal with or questions that are going to come up," Cutler said. "That's only natural. All I can say is he's got a lot of good friends on this team and we wish him the best of luck.

"At this point, we've got our own problems and things we are dealing with, and we're just trying to concentrate on camp and get everything going in the right direction we need it to go."

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