After suffering a devastating 16-15 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night, Chicago Bears fans are asking themselves what REALLY happened to Trey Burton?
The 27 year-old tight end signed a four-year $32 million contract with the Bears back in March and performed well this season. Catching 54 passes for 569 yards and 6 touchdowns, Burton was quickly becoming one of Mitchell Trubisky’s favorite targets and playing a vital role in the offense.
It was until Sunday morning that Bears fans found out he was mysteriously added to the injury report … apparently late Saturday night.
Trey Burton said he felt the groin injury in practice on Friday, but didn’t think it was a big deal and pushed through it. Woke up Saturday and “it was locked up.”
— Adam Hoge (@AdamHoge) January 7, 2019
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The media narrative is that Burton felt the injury happen at practice on Friday, then he woke up Saturday to it being “locked up,” as reported by Adam Hoge.
According to reports, head coach Matt Nagy indicated that Burton was at the team facility early on Saturday morning doing everything he could to repair the injury. After failing to get the relief needed, the team added Burton to the injury report late Saturday night.
“It crushed him,” Nagy said. “It absolutely crushed him. I just saw him in there. He feels bad because he feels like he wasn’t there for his guys. How ironic, just crazy-ironic, that it was against Philadelphia.”
What Really Happened?
If Burton really injured his groin Friday, woke up to crazy pain on Saturday and just simply couldn’t play Sunday – everyone feels bad. Considering the Bears lost, it’s clear nobody would feel worse than Burton who had to stand on the sideline and watch it.
However, the details surrounding this injury are scarce and there’s a lot of questions floating around. Here are a few things people are asking about…
Why “injury”?
Definitely not a doctor, but a groin injury is normally something that can be diagnosed by looking at the muscle. If it’s torn, or damaged in any way, it will likely come up on an MRI or something similar.
On Saturday morning you’d have to imagine performing medical tests on the muscle was the first thing they did. Why did it take until Saturday night to determine whether it was an “injury” or not?
Playing Through It?
The Bears didn’t even attempt to put Burton on the field to see how he felt during warm-ups, they did do it with Eddie Jackson though. If he was previously ruled out that makes sense, however if it was a freak injury that attempted to be repaired Saturday, wouldn’t a “gametime decision” be more applicable for this situation? Why not let him go through a warm-up?
Burton didn’t take the field and work out before the game on Sunday. There wasn’t any testing out the injury to see if he could play. He was ruled inactive…
Did It Happen Friday or Not?
According to Hoge’s tweet above, something happened to Burton on Friday and he felt it when he woke up Saturday.
However, when Nagy was asked about that (injury happening Friday), here is how he responded…
“I don’t think so, no,” he said. “It’s strange. I’m not a doctor, but I don’t really have an answer for you on that. He ended up getting up and felt it, and did what he was supposed to do, which is go in and talk to the trainer and try to get it taken care of. That’s exactly what we did.”
Not only did Nagy refer to it as “strange,” he also said he doesn’t think anything happened to Burton on Friday.
Now, for a moment, consider this. A $32 million tight end tweaks his groin on Friday. He doesn’t think it’s too big of a deal …. what would be the logical thing for Burton to do next with the defending Super Bowl champions coming to town?
- A. Tell his coach about the groin and hope for the best?
- B. Say nothing and hope for the best?
Burton rose to one of the most important weapons on the offense this season, how is option B even a possibility….? Maybe Burton really thought it wasn’t that bad?
Everything Else Considered
There really is no point in speculating what else may have gone on, but simply requesting a few more answers to clear up this situation should be plausible. In addition to that, to my knowledge, nobody has heard Burton speak about this directly yet. The only quotes seem to be coming from Nagy who appears to be shielding Burton from the media. Why?
In any case, Chicago fans are upset. The Bears lost the game and every single decision will be analyzed, but this Burton injury tops the list for the most bizarre.
Don’t be surprised if more information about this surfaces over the next few weeks/months.
