Chicago Bears: Lay off of Jay Cutler

Perhaps no other player in recent memory has been vilified more unfairly than Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, and most reasons people hate him deals with something entirely out of his control.

In 2010-2011, the Chicago Bears went to the NFC Championship Game, and, of course, Jay Cutler was criticized for being benched with an injury. Why? Because everyone hates him. When Aaron Rodgers is calling the criticism “disrespectful”, another Green Bay Packers player calls them “stupid”, and B.J. Raji constructs an incredibly eloquent defense of the rival passer, you know there’s something wrong with what the armchair tough guys are saying.

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However, Cutler’s 2010 season was more than just about being unfairly slammed for an injury. No, that season encapsulates the biggest issues I have with Cutler’s critics.

That year, he threw an interception a whopping 3.7% of the time, and we all know how prone to INTs Cutler was. The problem is that he had to throw those picks. Wait…what?

OK, that sounds crazy at first, but let me give you some important facts about the rest of the Bears offense that season. Their best wide receivers were Johnny Knox, Earl Bennett, Devin Hester, and Devin Aromashodu. Those are all terrible players who have never been successful in this league, and Knox’s 960 yards and five TD were a total one-hit wonder. It’s mind-boggling to think that Knox and Matt Forte were the only two players to have 50 receptions that year.

The entire Bears offense was based around running the ball frequently and using the vertical passing attack. Without Cutler’s moxie, toughness, ferocious arm, and never-give-up attitude, the Bears could have been a disaster. Knox’s stat line was completely buoyed by 18.8 yards per reception (he had a meager 51% catch rate), and Cutler finished the season with 12.5 yards per reception because of how the offense was set up.

In fact, Cutler was sixth in the NFL with 7.6 yards per pass attempt and 11th in adjusted yards per pass attempt despite the picks. Since his receivers were poor and since most of his passes were thrown down the field, he was destined to throw interceptions. There’s no denying the fact that Cutler always struggles with making bad decisions, but the high INT% was also partially caused by how the Bears had to run the offense.

With Cutler, it’s important to take the good with the bad. Because if you try to constrain his arm strength or make him play in the confines of a dink-and-dunk offense, you won’t be able to move the ball. Just ask Marc Trestman, who pulled one of the most moronic coaching stunts in the 2014 season. After watching Cutler earn his infamous, big-money deal after looking like a superstar in 2013 with Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery putting up huge numbers, Trestman decided to fix something that wasn’t broke.

The result? The Bears offense tanked. Because of course they did. The Bears decided to put a round peg in a square hole. Although Cutler completed a whopping 66% of his passes, he averaged just 6.8 yards per attempt and threw 18 interceptions. The bad decisions came because he was forced to run a timing-based offense that wasn’t the right fit, and he was unable to generate enough big plays to offset that. It didn’t help that this ineffective, amateur, and vanilla offense was fed entirely through Forte and Martellus Bennett, and you can’t win by throwing dump-off passes to the RB and TE all day.

All of the people criticizing Cutler for “not being a star” or whatever are completely missing the boat here. Why? Because nobody thinks he’s a star! 

Look, let’s be a real here: when has Cutler ever been referred to as a star player? Nobody thinks he’s a top quarterback, and nobody has thought this for a long time. He’s decent. He’s not terrible, he’s not great, but he’s somewhere in between, which is where most quarterbacks are at. Does he throw too many picks? Yes, but so does Eli Manning, who has the same career INT% as Cutler. But, of course, nobody mentions that, since Eli just happens to play for a more successful franchise that has helped bless him with two rings.

Cutler is who he is, and a lot of people feel the need to build up this fake narrative that people think he’s great. He’s only overpaid because every franchise QB is “overpaid”. If you don’t pay big bucks for a QB coming off of a big season, then someone else will.

That’s just how the game goes, so it’s technically unfair to call a QB who has repeatedly put up strong seasons “grossly overpaid”. By saying that, you show that you don’t really understand how economics in the NFL work. QBs who show some ability = paid. Just ask Ryan Tannehill or Colin Kaepernick. They are shining, more recent examples of this.

But what gets me the most fired-up about the Cutler hate has nothing to do with the on-field stuff; it’s the criticisms about his demeanor, effort, or character.

Wikipedia is like a permanent record for what an athlete has done off-the-field. Don’t believe me? Look at Von Miller’s page. Wow, he minored in poultry science! Or how about Dwayne Bowe? Looks like he was arrested for speeding and weed a few years ago.

So let’s take a look at Cutler’s page.

Hmmm, that’s funny. No arrests. Nothing. No off-field incidents. Just a dad who does a lot of charity work and does everything he can to help fellow diabetics. Sounds like a fantastic-freaking person if you ask me.

And yet we all hate him, because he “doesn’t care” (I wonder how many of these people actually know Cutler), because he’s a “coach-killer” (he killed Adam Gase, right?), and because he’s supposedly a “problem” in the locker room. I have never seen a credible report about Cutler causing friction in the locker room, but that award goes to Brandon Marshall (by the way, I have nothing but respect for Marshall and believe he should be a Hall of Fame LOCK).

There is literally no reason to hate Jay Cutler. Honestly, you should just hate yourself for dumping false expectations on a 32-year-old quarterback who has always been a solid-but-flawed starting QB throughout his career. His supposedly volatile dips between seasons? That’s actually because the organizations he’s played with have been known for volatile dips in the quality of players they put around him.

I mean, if you think the Bears biggest problem over the past few seasons has been Cutler, then you are delusional. In 2010 when they went deep into the playoffs, they had a top-five scoring defense. When they were 10-6 in 2012, they were third.

However, the Bears have been 2oth, 31st, and 30th in the past three seasons, leading to just 6, 5, and 8 wins, respectively.

But the problem is the offense, right?

Last season, Cutler somehow had a 64.4% completion percentage with just 11 picks and a 92.3 QB Rating despite having the vast majority of his offensive talent injured for much of the year. Just two players on the Bears had 50 receptions last year, and one of them did this in half of the season.

Cutler is the victim of misguided expectations, irresponsible media coverage, and blind-sheep fans who don’t approach claims made to them with speculation. Is he a great quarterback? No, and he’s never been great. Is he terrible? No, but the Bears defense is (still, but Vic Fangio gives them plenty of hope).

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He has his strengths, he has his flaws, and he can succeed if you make sure to play to his strengths without trying to change him. On two occasions, 2010 and 2015, he’s shown that he can succeed with a dreadful or injured group of weapons around him, so the big key with Cutler is making sure you let his arm talent shine enough to shroud his mistakes.