Former Packer Robert Tonyan responds to Jones' ‘s—y' fan comment
The Bears are back at Halas Hall as they wrap up the early stages of their summer program and get ready for a little break. Justin Fields is slinging the ball to new WR1 DJ Moore. Free agent linebackers Tremaine Edmunds and TJ Edwards are flying around. Eddie Jackson is back running at full speed after suffering a Lisfranc injury towards the end of last season.
And yet, when the Bears finished up their first day of mandatory minicamp social media quote boards weren’t about what happened on the field. They were about Justin Jones calling Packers fans “shitty” when asked about the state of the NFC North.
“It’s funny,” said Robert Tonyan on Wednesday.
Tonyan grew up in McHenry and played for the Packers from 2017-2022, so he’s about as familiar as anyone could be with the Bears-Packers rivalry. Yet he didn’t think Packers fans were any more obnoxious than any other fan base in the country.
“Honestly, whatever stadium I went to I felt like that was the case, you know?” Tonyan said. “Fans are wild. Especially when they’ve had a couple of drinks.”
He’s right. In every corner of the NFL, there will be fans that get rowdy, especially for rivalry games. When quarterbacks like Aaron Rodgers start participating in the trash talk, things can escalate.
“This rivalry is huge,” Tonyan said. “It’s one of the strongest in the NFL so there’s obviously going to be that banter for sure.”
So, no, Tonyan didn’t seem surprised to hear that a player on the Bears would have beef with Packers fans. In fact, Tonyan was encouraged by it.
“I like that. I like that fire in him.”
Football is a passionate sport and players need to find a fire within them somehow, some way. For Jones, it appears part of that fire comes from soaking up jeers from the fans in the stands.
