Jaw Breaker wrote:
Rick Morrissey nailed it today:
The Bears have always treated Jay Cutler as something more than he is.
From his first training camp in 2009, when team officials referred to him as “No. 6’’ in reverent tones, to the ton of guaranteed money the Bears gave him in January, you’d think he was No. 12 — Tom Brady.
The franchise has told us over and over again that Cutler possesses special skills that allow him to do things most other quarterbacks can’t do, things, they say, Brett Favre used to do. The next person who compares Cutler to Favre needs his head introduced to a wasp nest. It’s an insult to Favre, who actually won a Super Bowl and is headed to the Hall of Fame.
Perhaps Cutler does have special skills, but they’re in the hands of someone who doesn’t use them properly. The body does what the brain tells it to do, and Cutler’s brain keeps saying, “Nobody challenges Jay Cutler’s arm!’’ instead of, “You know what? I should probably throw the ball away so my team can live for another play.’’
He is not special, and it’s time the Bears stopped treating him as if he were. At this stage of his career, he shouldn’t be making the mistake he made in the Bears’ brutal loss to the Bills in the season opener Sunday. Rolling right and trying to throw a pass across your body into the middle of the field is suicide. Problem is, the suicide killed his team, with a 303-pound defensive tackle picking off Cutler’s silly pass. It’s very possible Kyle Williams didn’t even know what a football felt like until the pass came his way.
The team studied the tape Monday, and Cutler owned up to his mistake.
“Jay just said, ‘I’ve got to take care of the football. I’ve got to throw it away,’ ’’ coach Marc Trestman said.
Rather than having to go through the cleansing ritual of fessing up, how about not making the same mistake over and over again?
“I see how hard he works and the time he puts into it,’’ Trestman said. “He lost himself for a minute, made a decision I know we’ve seen other great quarterbacks make.’’
The fiction in that statement is that Cutler is a great quarterback. As long as the Bears treat him as one, there’s no reason for him to change.
After not making the playoffs last season, they basically cornered themselves into giving Cutler a seven-year, $126.7 million contract, with $54 million guaranteed. They needed to rebuild an awful defense, which meant they needed stability on offense. One game into the season, Phil Emery’s defensive restocking looks like a bust in progress. And if Cutler offers stability, then so does a fault line.
It feels a little silly to get this worked up after one game, and in a vacuum, I guess it is silly. But this is Cutler’s sixth season in Chicago, and watching him has been like watching someone jump up and down on a trampoline. My head hurts. The Bears keep saying we’re concentrating too much on the low points. Look at that arm! they say. Stop suggesting that the bad decisions can’t be coached out of him, as I did to Trestman on Monday, they say.
“I’ve seen Jay do a lot of really good things with the football, so I don’t know what that means,’’ Trestman said. “Everybody has their own perspective, and they’re entitled to it, but the time I’ve been with him, he’s made a lot of really good decisions, and I haven’t seen much of this go on. There was a tipped ball last year.’’
It was hard to shake the feeling that all of the uplifting words were meant solely for Cutler’s emotional well-being, for his self-esteem. Everyone at Halas Hall seems scared to death to send him into a pouty shell, fearing the effect it would have on the entire team. I ask you: Would it be worse than losing in overtime to the lowly Bills because of an awful fourth-quarter decision by the quarterback?
With the Bears, any criticism of players is purportedly offered behind closed doors. Cutler has a career that is all over the place in terms of performance, but you’d never know it listening to his blue-and-orange defenders. You’d certainly never know it from his huge contract.
He’s 31. He isn’t changing, folks. You’re stuck with him, all of him — the powerful throws, the mind-blowing interceptions. Enjoy.
This post is so fucking full of win.
This team fucking sucks.
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Yeah Ford and Wilson will get a ton of balls thrown their way. Ask Martellus .
