Kirk Herbstreit defends himself over Carson Wentz criticism

With the backlash growing Monday night, Herbstreit defended himself on social media, attempting to explain his remarks.

"I talked the entire game about how impressive it was that he was playing through a lot of pain and mentioned several times how mentally and physically tough he was. All I said was he can't throw his helmet and it was a bad look. That's it," said Herbstreit. "Doesn't take anything away from all the great things we said about him all night. Just was surprised to see that from him. That's it."

To rewind a bit, let's go back to last Thursday's blowout loss when Wentz was captured on camera slamming his helmet to the ground. It was a raw display of emotion for a quarterback who had taken a beating, and arguably should have been pulled with the game out of reach. Here's Herbstreit's exact wording from the night.

"You know, I understand, it's obviously been a rough night. He hadn't had a lot of help but to me, when you're the captain of the ship, when you're the quarterback, you got to try to hold some of that emotion in. I know he's frustrated, and he's hurt, but it's Week 7 there's a long way to go. I think some of that is just raw emotion," he said.

"You know, if Justin Jefferson does that, it's probably on SportsCenter, it's everywhere on social media. 'What's wrong with this guy?' A quarterback does that, to me, it's worse. Because, like I said, you're the guy, you're the leader, you're the alpha," continued Herbstreit. "It's a frustrated team right now. They'll get an opportunity to correct a lot of wrongs after a mini-bye. They'll get ready to go to Detroit. One win away, 60 minutes away from everybody feeling different."

While the Vikings may get a chance to respond and atone for the loss, Wentz won't.

There's obviously no way Herbstreit could have known Wentz was dealing with a season-ending injury. However, it was known that the veteran QB was managing a shoulder injury heading into the game. But no one, not even Herbstreit, was aware just how much pain Wentz was in.

"Yeah, I'm not proud of that," Wentz said about slamming his helmet. "I apologize to the equipment guys for that one. But yeah, I was in a good amount of pain there." Wentz went on to say that it was "quite possibly" the most pain he's experienced in a game during his 10-year NFL career.

In the end, Herbstreit has set the record straight that he's impressed by Wentz's toughness, but not his emotional outburst on the sideline.

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