Benchwarmer: Jay Cutler

Who is he? Jay Cutler is the starting quarterback for the Chicago Bears. This year is his fourth year in the NFL after playing at Vanderbilt. In the off-season, rookie head coach Josh McDaniels arrived in Denver and promptly shipped Cutler to the Bears for Kyle Orton, presumably because he saw what good coaches see: Cutler is a terrible quarterback!

Why don’t we like him? In my book, Cutler was doomed before his career even started because he replaced Jake “The Snake” Plummer. I really liked Plummer; he was a winner in my book, and that’s not just because he cultivated one of the best mustaches in history into one of the best beards. He’s got a rocket arm and a quick release that makes him a scout’s wet dream, but he makes such poor decisions that I’ve named a fake QB-disease after him: whenever a quarterback has a terrible game (think Mark Sanchez’s five-interception game), I’ve started to say he has symptoms off Cutler-itis. (This is different from diabetes, which Cutler also has.) Cutler had his own five-pick game against the 49ers last night. Admittedly, the only part of the game I was able to see was the final drive. That didn’t stop me from immediately saying, “he’s going to throw a pick.” After he led the Bears down the field despite a number of stupid penalties, I almost thought he might win the game, launching the broadcasters into tirades of “You brought Cutler to Chicago for game-winning drives like this!” Then he went back to being Jay Cutler and threw his fifth pick into a crowd of 49ers defenders. In Cutler’s defense, he did throw it really hard.


*Photo courtesy of Jauerback via Creative Commons License