Call Chicago Bears' Olin Kreutz a 'Serial Jaw Breaker' if You Must, but Say It to His Face

Chicago Bears center Olin Kreutz seems like one of the NFL's hardest players to figure out.

On the one hand, he's obviously smart, a hard-working team player, and a charitable man who has contributed money to retired players who have had health and financial problems. On the other hand, he has broken teammates' jaws in fights on two different occasions.

Chicago Sun-Times columnist Rick Telander has a wide-ranging interview with The Big Lead today in which he addresses his own history with Kreutz, and how he thinks a columnist gains credibility in criticizing an athlete if he'll meet that athlete face to face.
Telander says:

Last year I had a verbal run-in with Olin Kreutz. ... I had called the center a "serial jaw-breaker" in a column because I was pissed off at the treatment I and other writers were getting in the Bears locker room from guys like him. ... Yet I admire and respect Kreutz, a Bears team captain, a ferocious, dedicated football man, and in time we worked everything out. My statement had hurt him, I learned. Words have power. I apologized, to a point, told him why I was pissed off and how ignorant I thought the players were in this instance, and he quit with the nonsense he was doing and was rather generous ...

The whole interview is an interesting look at the way Telander does his job. My only complaint: Telander concludes his explanation for why he likes to meet with the people he writes about in person by using this tired cliche: "Otherwise, we're just bloggers in basements." Good one. Never heard that before.