Charles Barkley was at Soldier Field on Sunday for the NFC Championship Game, and he said he knew Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler was going to get criticized for leaving the game in the third quarter with a knee injury.

But what caught Barkley by surprise was the criticism of other players around the league via Twitter.

"I was mad at the players, to be honest with you," Barkley said Tuesday on "The Waddle & Silvy Show" on ESPN 1000. "I think it was inappropriate and wrong to question a guy's heart. Now reporters, they're going to do what they want to. They're entitled to their opinion. But as players, I don't think it's appropriate to question another guy's heart.

"That crosses the line, because you don't know. If you go back and start looking at all the stuff that's been said, and clearly one of the more vocal critics was Maurice Jones-Drew, and then you find out he missed the last two games with a bad knee. And he was really the first guy who crucified Jay. You have to be careful, because in the two most important games of the year, he sat out with a bad knee. And then it really makes him look like an idiot now."

Jones-Drew subsequently said he was just joking and was taken out of context.