Antrel Rolle’s lone Bears season was cut short Nov. 20, when he slipped without being touched on the final play of practice and tore the medial collateral ligament in his right knee.
After being cut by the team Sunday, the veteran safety blamed the grass and turf at Halas Hall, telling the New York Post that “the surfaces in Chicago are the worst I’ve ever seen.”
The grass at Soldier Field is already infamous in NFL circles. But Rolle reiterated to “Spiegel and Goff” on WSCR-AM that the facilities at Halas Hall — which features two grass fields and one indoor artificial turf surface — needed to improved.
“I always knew that Soldier Field was bad,” he said Monday. “I just never knew that the facilities were just as bad.”
Rolle himself admitted that there was more to blame than the playing surface for his injury. Returning from a high ankle sprain suffered at Soldier Field in Week 4, Rolle’s ankle was taped stiff for practice. When he slipped after trying to change direction, his knee suffered damage, in part, because his ankle was not as mobile as usual.
He told the radio station that the rest of Halas Hall was fine.
“The facilities are good in Chicago,” he told the radio station. “The fields are just not as good. I don’t know the reason behind it.”
He said he didn’t have hard feelings toward the Bears. He communicated as much to former workout partner and Miami alum Deon Bush, a safety the Bears drafted to ostensibly take his place.
Still, he hoped to face the Bears as an opponent and, he said, “bust their ass.”
NOTE: The Bears released defensive tackle D’Antony Smith, who recorded one tackle while playing in the season’s final two games last year.
