NEWSLETTER
When Brandon Marshall signed with the Seattle Seahawks in the offseason, I circled Week 2 of the season on my calendar because of the “revenge game” factor for the ex-Chicago Bears standout who didn’t necessarily leave the team on the best of terms.
But unlike me, Marshall doesn’t see it that way … like, at all: “Chicago’s a great place,” Marshall said, via Mark Potash of the Chicago Sun-Times. “Here [in Seattle], we talk a lot about every game is just another game. That’s something I’ve bought in to. In the past, I may have gone into a game like this and maybe have been a little more hyped. But it’s just another game.”
It might be “just another game” for Marshall because the only teammates he had on the 2014 Bears who are still on the team in 2018 are Kyle Long, Josh Bellamy, Kyle Fuller, Charles Leno Jr., Sherrick McManis, and Patrick O’Donnell. Quarterbacks Jay Cutler and Josh McCown are long gone, as are head coaches Lovie Smith and Marc Trestman. Even the general manger who acquired him is no longer with the team. So it’s not as if Marshall is going to have much bad blood with anyone who’s still hanging around. The Bears that Marshall left behind are different than the guys he’ll square off against on Monday.
But still … this is a surprisingly bland response from a receiver who was never shy about speaking his mind while in Chicago (or any of his other stops throughout his NFL career). Is it bad that I was hoping for a bit more? Some fire to get the troops riled? Ah, well.
Marshall caught 279 passes for 3,524 receiving yards and scored 31 touchdowns in 45 games played in a Bears uniform from 2012 to 2014. He earned two Pro Bowl trips and an All-Pro nomination and helped Jay Cutler have his best statistical seasons in Chicago. And yet, the team never made it to the postseason while he was in town racking up huge numbers and re-writing the record books at Halas Hall. In fact, Marshall has never made it to the playoffs at any point in his remarkable 13-year career. That’s something he hopes changes this year in Seattle. And by the looks of it, he has a more mature mindset that makes you think he can help get it done if things break right for the rest of the Seahawks.
Hopefully, that climb to what has been an unreachable goal at this point can begin for Marshall and his teammates in Seattle after the game against Chicago on Monday Night Football.
