Danieal Manning on the Reaction to His Handshake with Brian Urlacher: “It blows my mind”

November 14, 2012 – 10:15 am by Chris Fedor

After the Houston Texans embarrassing performance earlier this season on Sunday Night Football against the Green Bay Packers, the Texans needed to show something this past weekend. They did just that against the Chicago Bears. On a rainy, windy night, Houston beat Chicago at their own game. Led by a tough, physical defense and a strong running game, Houston won the battle on a sloppy field and showed that they are one of the best teams in the NFL this season. The loss by Chicago was just the second of the season, but the loss of Jay Cutler to a concussion could have a lasting impact on the Bears this season. That should be the story because of what it means to the Bears future but instead the story blowing through the Windy City is about a handshake between Brian Urlacher and his former teammate, Danieal Manning after Manning picked off Cutler early in the game.

Danieal Manning joined WSCR in Chicago with Mully and Hanley to talk about the reaction from Bears fans after Brian Urlacher shook his hand following an interception, if he thinks he was used out of position in Chicago, on the Texans strategy the other night against the Bears, what he thinks about Jay Cutler as a quarterback and if he thinks the Bears-Texans game lived up to the hype.

On the reaction from Bears fans after Brian Urlacher shook his hand following an interception:

“I can’t. It blows my mind. It really does. We’ve been playing this game for such a long time and now we’re professionals and I feel like we deserve the chance, we respect this game, we’re both competitors and we respect each other. I was there with Brian for five years and we developed a friendship and I think the guy was just happy for me. I mean if he makes a great play I’m going to be the same way. Between the whistles we’re going to be friends but we’re going to be competing with each other but now I just made a play, I walked up to him, exchanged a couple of words and we shook hands. That was pretty much it. After the game he just told me he was proud of me and he was happy that I was able to get in a situation that I enjoy. There was no animosity toward the team, the organization or the players. I left because I had a better offer on the table and that was with the Houston Texans. I didn’t feel like I left on bad terms and that’s the reason I was telling everyone that it wasn’t personal playing this team.”

If he thinks he was being played out of position when he was with the Bears:

“Hindsight we had some injuries early and they had to bump me around. I didn’t know if I was going to be able to start the first year or not because we had Chris Harris and Mike Brown. Chris Harris got hurt and they needed me to come up and I played, I think I’ve done well and then the next year they brought Adam Archuleta in and again it was Adam Archuleta and Mike Brown and Mike Brown got injured again and I was playing again so I guess at that time I guess the coaching staff wasn’t looking for me to play immediately but injuries played a big part of me playing and I felt like I did the best with it. I moved around from safety, to nickel, to corner and personally it showed the world my talent. I’m able to return kicks now and I think that helped me in the free agent market too, my versatility.”

On the strategy the other night playing against the Bears:

“The way it was broken to us was we’re going to stop the run. We know those guys are going to come out and run the ball. That has always been Bears tradition so we’re going to load the box pretty much and put it in the air and make Cutler truly, truly beat us. We knew that he was going to target Brandon Marshall a ton in that game so that’s what we ended up doing. We put J-Jo (Jonathan Joseph) on him and at times we rolled certain coverages to cover him and pretty much that was it. Then me playing free and sometimes I rolled down and pretty much just worked in our favor. Good game plan Wade (Phillips) drew up and it worked.”

On Jay Cutler:

“Oh yeah. No disrespect to any other quarterbacks that ever came through with the Bears but I feel like, in my personal opinion, Jay has been the best quarterback, the best addition in the quarterback legacy for a long time. He brings them a lot and gives them a chance to win all the time. When you have a quarterback like Jay who can make plays and whose arm is so strong, no matter what type of weather you’re playing in, no matter what DB’s you have, the guy can make plays and he can make every throw. That’s always putting yourself in a winning position. When I was playing there I was so happy to get him on the team. You always feel like you’re going to be in the game when you’re playing with Jay Cutler.”

If he thinks the Bears-Texans was a preview to something more in the future:

“When we played it felt like a big time playoff game, it felt like the Super Bowl. It really did. It lived up to the hype in my opinion with strong defense, the offense made some plays, turnovers, special teams plays, penalties, you know I felt like it lived up to it.”

Listen to Danieal Manning on WSCR in Chicago here

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