Who Gets to Judge Jay Cutler?
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I’ll admit it, when I saw that Jay Cutler was out of the NFC Championship Game so quickly, I was like Dude, suck it up and play. Turns out I wasn’t alone. Several NFL players were vocal, either on radio or via Twitter, about Cutler and his “level of toughness.”
Here’s a sampling:
Derrick Brooks from Tampa Bay said via Twitter, “I have to be crawling and can’t get up to come off the field.” A few minutes later, after the Bear’s third string quarterback was in, Brooks continued, “There is no medicine for a guy with no guts and heart.”
Heart was the question of the day when it came to Cutler. Deion Sanders said, “I never question a player’s injury, but I do question a player’s heart.”
If Cutler had shown the least bit of pain for his MCL tear, we might feel differently. If he had shown the slightest bit of disappointment. Instead, he mentally shut down, furthering the belief that his heart was not in the game. He had a zombielike stare while watching his teammates play their butts off.
Mark Schlereth, once an NFL lineman (and now talking head on ESPN) said, “As a guy [who has had] 20 knee surgeries you’d have to drag me out on stretcher to leave a championship game.”
Finally, Maurice Jones-Drew sent out a Tweet that said, “All I’m saying is that he can finish the game on a hurt knee … I played the whole season on one”
And yet, there were some that felt Cutler’s treatment in the Twitterverse and elsewhere was uncalled for. Some even questioned why we (fans and players) had the right to judge him.
Here’s why. Because as fans and players we dissect every inch of a game. We wonder why a coach calls a bone-headed play, why a player celebrates when his team is losing, and why teams that should be prepared for games are not.
If you’re going with the argument that fans aren’t allowed to judge because we aren’t qualified and don’t know what it’s like to put your body through what those players do, I can give you that. But what about other players? Cutler was getting called out by players as much as he was fans.
Brian Urlacher, who played his heart out in the Bears loss, defended Cutler and went as far as to say that the players who criticized him are all “jealous guys, sitting at home watching on TV.”
I’m not sure about that, but I do think they’re guys who know what’s like to be in a playoff game (or at least know that they want the opportunity to play in one) and can’t imagine the way in which Cutler left. If Cutler had had a better game, would we be easier on him? Maybe. But he didn’t, and because he didn’t seem to feel that burning desire to get back in and show the Packers what he had, he’s being judged today.
This is a silly statement. Cutler was injured then pulled from the game by the team. They then were subject to NFL rules. Once they put in the 3rd string QB Cutler was ineligible to re-renter the game. Had the Bears waited until the 4th Quarter to put Hanie in Cutler could have re-entered the game.
This blast was a result of uniformed people attacking a man for his sideline demeanor. Which frankly is just a dumb thing to dissect.
As for Cutlers toughness, I think it’s stupid for someone like “Neon” Deion “Prime Time” Sanders to discuss that. Considering he sat out two seasons for TURF TOE (an injury Derrick Rose played on for a year) and spent the majority of his “career” avoiding tackling and blocking.
Mr. Cutler played behind an awful line for the past two seasons for the Bears. He took 92 sacks during that time, suffered one concussion, a torn MCL (also called a type II sprain), and not once did he throw his linemen under the bus. In comparison, Tom Brady (who has a great line in front of him) took 41 in the past two seasons. Peyton Manning had the best protection with only 26 sacks in that amount of time. A torn MCL affects a players ability to cut and juke. If anyone had been watching Jay Cutler this season, they know he makes plays with his legs out of the pocket (two rushing TDs vs Seattle). Which is the reason he’s better in Play Action, than in the pocket. If you can’t trust the O Line to block, you can’t throw. And that Packer defense is quick. You can’t help your team when you’re planted in the ground. He wasn’t helping the team win. He was losing a blowout when he was pulled.
The term, “Fan” is short for fanatic. That doesn’t mean intelligently dissecting every play. It means: A person marked or motivated by an extreme, unreasoning enthusiasm, as for a cause. In laymans terms; Fan = Nut Job that scrutinizes and jumps to silly conclusions.
Which is exactly what the twitter bombing of Jay Cutler was.
FYI, in the 2009 AFC championship game, Hines Ward had the same injury. Not a single negative remark on twitter. In 2001, the Patriots’ Tom Brady suffered a sprained MCL in the AFC Championship and sat for the rest of the game. Then watched as Drew Bledsoe carved up the Steel Curtain(Brady played in the Superbowl 2 weeks later). Despite the lack of twitter there were little to no comments about Brady taking a shot and “getting back out there”. But no one lights up a golden boy like TB.
Cutler is a lighting rod for the image he has among the press. That is his own fault for not being more candid. That being said there are plenty of athletes that aren’t subject to the hatred he received after the game. In fact, if you look at the NBA, two of the greatest athletes in that sport are some of the worst interviewees (Bill Russell, and Kobe Bryant). Yet, no one EVER questions their heart.
This is a result of the internet world where anyone can be anonymous and mean spirited venom can be spewed out without the attacker being subject to persecution. It’s a sign of our failings as human beings and the reason our culture is slowly slipping away from us.