Under the Gun: Jay Cutler

Chicago's Super Bowl hopes ended early in the third quarter of Sunday's Championship duel with the Packers when QB Jay Cutler had to come out of the game with a sprained MCL. Since that moment, he's been blasted by current and former players, blowhards, and nameless talking heads throughout the football media sphere. Let's take a step back from this though, for just a minute.

Jay Cutler has been under fire since joining the Denver Broncos out of Vanderbilt, and onward into Chicago for his aloof and uncharismatic attitude. His sometimes questionable decision-making under center. As for the latter issue, he's a young gunslinger, and one of the best quarterbacks of the modern era (Brett Favre) is the all-time leader in not just touchdowns, but also interceptions. There are worse stats to live with, like being sacked 57 times in a season (17 games, 2 in the playoffs; he missed one game of the regular season with a concussion). As for his attitude, some guys just aren't fired-up and born leaders, and let their play on the field show their ability to guide a team. Obviously, quarterbacks like Drew Brees or Tom Brady, who have the ability to stir up sideline emotions, are valuable commodities, but not absolutely necessary to the success of a franchise.

Back to the point at hand, though. Here's the interesting part of all this: not one man in the Chicago locker room has said a thing against Cutler. Everyone who has said anything, especially head coach Lovie Smith, has given only support for Cutler. That doesn't sound like a man incapable of leading a team to me. It makes me sick to hear everyone throwing Cutler under the bus, when you consider that, yes, there is a shot to go to the Super Bowl at hand, but the only way he can continue to play the game is to stay healthy. The Bears' offensive line played so terribly this year, that if I'm Jay Cutler, and there's a chance this sprained ligament could be worsened to a career-threatening injury if I get knocked around, I'm done. There's no respect for preserving longevity, as everyone thinks you have to leave it all on the field. Believe me, if there was any chance that the med staff thought Cutler was safe to play, he'd have been out there.

Before we rush to judge a man whose injuries we can't grasp the severity of, we need to consider that this is a guy who has had the crap beaten out of himself this year, and that it's extremely easy to worry that the knee would have been worsened under the ferocity of the Pack's D-line against the Bears' O-line. He'll be back next year to silence the critics, as most guys who look into the smoking gun tend to do. It begins with bolstering that front line though, and only then can his toughness and manhood be questioned. Let BJ Raji body slam you if you still think he's got no toughness.