My thoughts on the Jay Cutler fiasco….

It’s been the talk of not only Chicago, but the entire nation over the past 24 hours. Bears quarterback Jay Cutler has come under fire by fans, players, and the media for his actions following a knee injury that knocked him out of the first half of Sunday’s NFC Championship Game loss to Green Bay.

While everybody wants to believe that Cutler “quit” on his team, that indeed was not the case. According to Zach Zaidman via 670 The Score in Chicago, Cutler’s knee injury occured with 4:06 remaining in the second quarter after throwing an incomplete pass to Greg Olsen. After the injury, Cutler played for two more drives which resulted in a interception & punt before Chicago’s medical staff determined that he could not return to the game.

Once Cutler was told that Todd Collins would replace him at quarterback (Collins came into the game following Brian Urlacher’s 39-yard interception), he was initially very upset and wanted to re-enter the game. However, the final word came from both head coach Lovie Smith and the Bears’ medical staff, so it’s really unfair for people to label Jay as a quitter (and other words that are way more graphic) when he didn’t have the ownership nor power to override such a huge decision.

There was also a huge misconception that Cutler was just sitting on the bench and “not caring about the game” once he found out he could not play, and it’s untrue. Caleb Hanie was interviewed in the locker room earlier today and said that Cutler was talking with him inbetween drives and offered advice, as well as answering questions regarding offensive plays that the coaching staff wanted to run.

I understand that it was the NFC Championship Game, but do people realize that Cutler’s only 27 years old and has another good 8-to-10 years (barring any serious injuries) left in him to quarterback in this league, combined with the fact that he has Type 1 Diabetes? It’s absolutely unfair to risk a franchise player’s sprained MCL knee injury that could have worsened if he came back into the game just to increase their chances of reaching the Super Bowl.

It’s one thing to just drop back even with the sprained MCL and try to run an offense when hurt, but what happens when you have a 350-pound defensive tackle coming right at you and lands ON the injured knee? It will only make matters worse, and then we will want to blame the coaching staff as well. Even if Chicago won yesterday’s NFC Championship, there wasn’t even a sure guarantee that Cutler would be ready to play in the Super Bowl.

I have a big problem with some of the criticism coming from the media and Twitter, which included comments from current players such as Maurice Jones-Drew & Darnell Dockett among others.

Not the best way to provide a clean and positive image for the league when we are under 2 months away from a serious lockout, huh guys?

Maurice Jones-Drew really disappointed me with his comments. According to his tweet, Jones-Drew said that “All I’m saying is that he can finish the game on a hurt knee… I played the whole season on one,”.

Keep in mind that this is the same Maurice Jones-Drew who sat out himself with a knee injury when his Jacksonville Jaguars were still in playoff contention. Ironically, the Jaguars lost their final 2 games without him to miss the playoffs for the 3rd straight year.

I really liked how Bears’ general manager Jerry Angelo came to Cutler’s defense today during his end-of-season press conference at Halas Hall.

He called the criticism “crap”, and also pointed out that the player’s union will have even more problems now with the owners regarding a new labor contract that must be agreed upon by March 4th in order to have a 2011 season by the NFL.

Out of all this, i was EXTREMELY saddened to see fans burning Cutler’s #6 jerseys outside of Soldier Field following the loss. To me, it says that they have turned their back on him. Really disappointed in this, as he just finished his 2nd year with the Bears at quarterback with his second different offensive coordinator while showing improvement from his 2009 season.

It’s one thing to bash a player after they leave town (think about the aftermath Cleveland had following LeBron’s “decision” last summer), but to do it while a guy is still under contract is absolutely inexcuseable. Jay Cutler is the best quarterback that Chicago has had since the days of Sid Luckman, so we need to respect this man and appreciate what he has done for our team. We gave up an awful lot of draft picks to get him, and i’m proud of his teammates and the front office for sticking up for their quarterback. Not every team is fortunate enough to do that…just ask the Tennessee Titans after what they endured this season with an immature Vince Young.

Bottom line is, save your criticism of Jay Cutler until his contract is up in 2013. This is the most talented quarterback we have had in this city for decades, and we can’t run him out of town due to one overblown incident.

Bears Nation would never recover from such a thing.