It's never just right with Jay Cutler

HSanders

disgusted and pissed
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Count me as one who is sick of hearing the media constantly say that Cutler "is a great QB". "NO!!!", I always shriek at my TV, "He's NOT a great QB, he's a TALENTED QB...biiig difference."
Hell Matthew Stafford (another "talented but not great" QB)looked better vs the NYG with one game with his new coaching staff than Cutler has ever looked with two "QB oriented HCs".
I'd argue that Peypey has more teflon coating on him (and yes non Pats fans, TB has some too lately) but "talented but not great " guys like Cutler are usually up there too.


http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...bears-quarterback-jay-cutler-never-just-right


It's never just right with Jay Cutler
There's always someone else to blame when things go bad for the NFL's Goldilocks

Originally Published: September 11, 2014
By David Fleming | ESPN.com

AS WE BEGIN the 19th season of the Flem File, I must confess that after all this time, I've only uncovered one undisputed, universal truth when it comes to understanding the NFL.

Nothing is ever Jay Cutler's fault.

You might think, in a season opener at home against the bottom-feeding Bills, that a newly minted, $126 million, franchise quarterback with a single career playoff win who has had an entire franchise ripped apart and rebuilt to his exact specifications would, maybe, be to blame for throwing two picks that led to 10 easy points for Buffalo in a shocking 23-20 overtime loss.

And, like I said, you'd be wrong.

Nothing is ever Blameless Jay's fault.

You might think it's too early to panic in Chicago. (You might also think this column is starting to sound a lot like the cinder-block balcony scene in "Old School.") But the Bears play five of their next seven on the road, including this week in San Francisco, where, in his latest visit, Cutler threw five picks and zero touchdowns, though as I said, none of that was even remotely close to being his fault.

This was supposed to be the year everything was in place for Cutler to reach his full potential and take the Bears on another deep run in the playoffs. Finally, we were told, after almost a decade in the NFL -- roughly the same time it took to build the Panama Canal -- Cutler was, at long last, ready to step up and become a franchise quarterback.

Here's the thing, though: Real franchise quarterbacks thrive under pressure and adversity by always accepting responsibility, never offering excuses and finding ways to elevate those around them to a level of performance they could never achieve on their own.

Cutler has a nearly flawless, smooth and compact throwing motion and a crazy once-in-a-lifetime canon of an arm. It is so remarkable, in fact, that with it Cutler has managed to seduce even the wise and hardened fan base of Chicago for more than six years. But we all know playing quarterback in the NFL is about so much more than passing the ball and then screaming at your subordinates when things go poorly.

Which means, given his track record of leadership, the only franchise Cutler should be running is a Denny's.

He needs perfect coaching? After Bountygate (yet another shining example of Roger Goodell's leadership and sliding, slippery scale of morality), Drew Brees lost his offensive playcaller, best friend and head coach for an entire season, and he still threw for 5,177 yards and 43 touchdowns. Cutler needs perfect protection? Aaron Rodgers won a Super Bowl with a dozen or so starters on injured reserve. Cutler needs perfect pass-catchers? There have been long stretches during Tom Brady's Hall of Fame career when his receiving corps looked like something Bill Belichick picked up on the Island of Misfit Toys. Cutler needs a better defense? Eli Manning won a Super Bowl in 2011 with the sixth-worst defense in the league.

So I was racking my brain trying to think of a name for whatever it is that afflicts Cutler when I realized the Bears have given him everything he has ever asked for, and yet somehow Mr. Grumpypants still isn't satisfied or comfortable or the least bit grateful.

Just look at the laundry list of coaches and offensive coordinators he's burned through over the years: Mike Shanahan was too old school; Josh McDaniels was too new school; Ron Turner was too collegial; Mike Martz too complicated; Mike Tice was not complicated enough; Lovie Smith was too defensive-minded. But Marc Trestman, oh, Marc Trestman was gonna be juuuuust right.

And then it hit me.

Jay Cutler has GLD, Goldilocks Disorder.

The Bears (get it?) and their fans can continue to provide all the expensive, soft, cushiony support they can muster for Cutler.

It will never, ever be juuuuust right with this guy.

Did you hear the Colts' Andrew Luck on Sunday after he botched a QB sneak against the Broncos? Here's a guy with less than one-third the experience of Cutler and about one-third the talent around him, with every reason to deflect, make excuses and point fingers.

Instead, he stood at the podium, looked the world in the eye and put it all on himself. "Bad, bad decision, and it cost us," Luck said. "If I take a timeout, change the play, whatever it is. Stupid decision, won't make it again. Learn from it and keep trucking along and have a good week of practice coming up."

Now, compare that to Cutler over the years, deep in the throes of GLD.

ONCE UPON A TIME in Denver he needed to win one of his final three games of the 2008 season to make the playoffs. Cutler's passer rating during that stretch never went above 74.9, but it wasn't his fault. He needed a team with a better defense. (HSANDERS' NOTE: And as I recall, he scoffed at the fact the Pats wouldn't beat SD after they beat Den in the playoffs by saying "our defense can't stop anyone")So the Bears gave up two No. 1 picks to put him with Smith. Cutler threw an NFL-high 26 picks in 2009, and the Bears finished 7-9.

ONCE UPON A TIME, Cutler needed better targets. (HSANDERS' NOTE: he had an OL and skill players that would make most QBs weep with joy when he was in Denver and STILL made so many bad plays worse. HE IS WHAT HE IS)

So the Bears got him Brandon Marshall, Martellus Bennett and Alshon Jeffery. And it still wasn't juuuuust right.

ONCE UPON A TIME, protection was too soft.

So the Bears let him scream at his linemen during games, and they got him Jordan Mills and Jermon Bushrod, and in 2013 they started the same five offensive linemen in all 16 games. Cutler suffered his fewest sacks since 2008, and the Bears still finished 8-8.

ONCE UPON A TIME, Cutler needed a run game to keep defenses honest.

So the Bears opened their wallets and locked up Matt Forte.

ONCE UPON A TIME, Cutler needed the comfort and security of a long-term contract. Here's how the negotiations probably went: $100 million is too low, $150 million is too high, but $126 million feels juuuuust right.

ONCE UPON A TIME, Cutler needed an offensive-minded head coach.

So Smith was fired after a Super Bowl and a 10-win season (there were other issues besides the QB, of course), and Trestman, the QB whisperer, was hired. But things still didn't feel juuuuust right with Jay.

ONCE UPON A TIME, after 3,310 passes thrown as a pro, Cutler would be perfect -- just as soon as he got more time to acclimate to Trestman's new scheme.

After all that, in the 2014 season opener, what does Blameless Jay do?

[+] EnlargeKyle Williams
AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
Defensive tackle Kyle Williams' interception of Cutler in the fourth quarter kept the Bills alive in a game they won in overtime.
On third-and-1, late in the game, when anything other than an interception probably seals the win for the Bears, he throws across his body, on the run, trying to force the ball in to Bennett, and instead, with the game on the line, Cutler gets picked off by a defensive tackle.

Immediately afterward, it was obvious, at least to Blameless Jay and his followers, exactly who was at fault: Trestman, of course, for not calling a run play. The coach also seems to be suffering from GLD after falling back on the "three-phases" cliché after the shocking loss. And let's not forget the impossibly unfair media for daring to expect a $126 million, nine-year, franchise quarterback on a playoff-caliber roster to be able to, you know, win a game at crunch time by, um, falling down.

On Monday, at least, Cutler seemed to finally shake his GLD and his Blameless Jay persona.

"That last interception was a tough one. I've got to throw the ball away or run," he said during "The Jay Cutler Show" on ESPN 1000 in Chicago. "Third down, fourth down, no matter what the situation is, I've got to do something better."

That almost sounded like Cutler actually taking responsibility for something. Maybe his GLD is finally in remission.

It's a start, I suppose. A glimmer of hope.

But with the 49ers and 0-2 looming, a season that started as a Bears fairy tale now seems to have little chance of ending happily ever after.
 
Cutler is a gunslinger. He'll always make prominent mistakes.

If he tried to limit mistakes, he'd no longer be a gunslinger.

Any fan of the Bears just has to take the good w/ the bad. It's hard to find perfect QB's.
 
I would never ever want any QB who makes bad plays worse as a matter of course. If he didn't have the arm he had he'd be Fitzpatrickesque.

There's liminting who a guy is, and there's things that are an easy fix. I put that under easy fix. THROW THE BALL AWAY WHEN IT'S NOT THERE. There, done. I'd say his screw ups on "gunslinging" far exceed any good plays he makes quantity wise. It's just not worth it.
 
Chi also even hired Jeremy Bates, another Qb coach Cutler liked, to no avail. I'm not a fan of "anonymous sources" but it's not like a billion people haven't put their names on critique of this guy.


http://espn.go.com/blog/chicago/bea...r-coaches-doubt-bears-can-win-with-jay-cutler


CHICAGO BEARS
Former coaches doubt Bears can win with Jay Cutler
March, 3, 2015
MAR 3
9:00
AM ET
By Michael C. Wright | ESPN.com
2K59COMMENTS311EMAILPRINT
Jay Cutler
AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt
Bears quarterback Jay Cutler signed a seven-year $126.7 million extension last January.

At least 10 former Chicago Bears staffers from the Lovie Smith and Marc Trestman regimes said recently they believe the team can't consistently compete for championships as long as it fields a lineup with Jay Cutler under center.

That sentiment might explain why head coach John Fox and general manager Ryan Pace remain uncommitted to Cutler as the team's starting quarterback for 2015. Deciding whether to commit to Cutler has a time element. If Cutler is on the Bears' roster on March 12, $10 million of his 2016 salary is guaranteed.

Cutler declined comment through a team spokesman. His agent, Bus Cook, said questions about whether the Bears feel they can win with Cutler should be directed to the team.

Two teammates, who also asked to remain anonymous for this story, characterized Cutler as a divisive figure with whom they'd rather not continue to play.

In six years with the Bears, Cutler has gone through four offensive coordinators, two head coaches and a pair of general managers. Yet Cutler remains very much in play as the team's potential long-term solution at the position, in part, because of the seven-year, $126.7 million extension the quarterback signed in January 2014.

One more former staffer said the Bears could win with Cutler as long as the coaches handcuff him to the system.

[+] EnlargeJohn Fox
Kamil Krzaczynski/USA TODAY Sports
"I don't think there's any question that there's ability and talent there," new Bears coach John Fox said recently of Cutler. "[But] there's a lot more that goes into it, and we're evaluating that as we speak."
But that's precisely what the staff did when Mike Martz served as offensive coordinator during the 2010 and '11 seasons, according to another former coach, and Cutler and Martz were often at odds.

Although Smith let Martz go after the 2011 season, there's no denying Cutler played some of his best football as a Bear during a six-game span that year in which he completed 60.7 percent of his throws for 1,359 yards and eight touchdowns with three interceptions for a passer rating of 91.3. Cutler led the Bears to a 5-1 record during that stretch before breaking his right thumb in a Nov. 20 win over the San Diego Chargers.

“We're going to take our time on this,” Pace said recently. “We really have until mid-March. We're going to maximize that time and make thorough decisions through this whole process.”

But video evaluation of Cutler may not prove as beneficial as speaking with teammates and perhaps his former coaches. Remember, Pace worked with former Bears offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer in New Orleans, and it would come as a surprise if the new GM didn't pick Kromer's brain about Cutler. Kromer is the same coach who apologized during a team meeting for admitting he was an anonymous source in a story that characterized the Bears as harboring buyer's remorse for signing Cutler to the long-term contract. When the Bears cleaned house in December before Pace came on board, Kromer's contract was the only one terminated of all the assistants remaining on the staff.

“I don't think there's any question that there's ability and talent there,” Fox said recently of Cutler. “[But] there's a lot more that goes into it, and we're evaluating that as we speak.”

Despite Pace's and Fox's refusal to commit to Cutler publicly as the starter, it appears -- based on the staff they've set up -- the Bears are prepared to give the quarterback one last shot. The Bears hired two pro-Cutler coaches in offensive coordinator Adam Gase and quarterbacks coach Dowell Loggains.

According to multiple sources, Cutler started to grow close to Gase after spending time with the former Broncos offensive coordinator at the wedding of former Bears quarterbacks coach Shane Day, a disciple of Martz. Cutler has wanted to work with Gase for a while, the sources said. Martz tried to hire Gase in 2010 as Chicago's quarterbacks coach, but Denver wouldn't allow him out of his contract, which led to the hiring of Day.

[+] EnlargeJay Cutler
AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh
Jay Cutler completed 66 percent of his passes last season and threw for 3,812 with 28 touchdowns and 18 interceptions on a Bears' team that finished 5-11.
Back in 2012, Cutler wanted Smith to hire Loggains, but he wasn't allowed out of his contract with the Tennessee Titans. Cutler and Loggains have a close personal relationship, according to a sources, and both the quarterback and coach have wanted to work with one another for quite some time.

It's unknown how Cutler and the new staff will get along if he's still on the roster in 2015, and one former coach said he believes it's time the organization stops catering to the quarterback until he delivers a return on the club's investment.

One staffer said that while Cutler was injured and Josh McCown was flourishing as the replacement in 2013, there was a significant faction in the locker room that believed the latter should've remained the starter. Another coach said that fairly early in the 2014 season, it was apparent the team had made two mistakes: (1) not re-signing McCown, and (2) continuing to stand behind Cutler after it was clear he was not going to consistently operate within the confines of Trestman's offense.

That same coach said he believed McCown gave the Bears a better chance to win than Cutler because he simply executed the scheme the way he was asked, without freelancing.

Pace and Fox met with McCown during the NFL combine, but there will be no reunion as McCown signed with the Cleveland Browns.

Some may view the disparaging remarks from Cutler's former coaches as sour grapes on the part of scorned staffers. Nobody on the current staff has told Cutler he's on the way out or that his tenure in Chicago is in jeopardy.

But every one of the former staffers interviewed from the Smith and Trestman regimes pointed out similar flaws in the quarterback. Two “R” words -- “renegade” and “rogue” -- were often used by the former staffers when asked about Cutler's ability to play within the confines of an offensive system.

They all also questioned Cutler's leadership abilities. One former staffer said McCown was the offense's leader in the locker room during his final season in Chicago, adding that for Cutler “it's just not him” to embrace such a role. The staffer said that Cutler doesn't have to be a leader for the team to succeed.

But it's difficult to ignore that the most successful teams in the NFL have strong leadership at the quarterback position.

"There's a lot of things outside of the building that I think are maybe a little misunderstood. When you get to know somebody, things are different when you get to talk face to face. So yeah, that's going on,” Pace said. “I know he's a very talented player, and again it's just getting to know him as a person and kind of how he ticks.”
 
Cutler is a gunslinger. He'll always make prominent mistakes.

If he tried to limit mistakes, he'd no longer be a gunslinger.

Any fan of the Bears just has to take the good w/ the bad. It's hard to find perfect QB's.

Favre was a gunslinger. Cutler is a Whiney Bitch Moron Loser. Not necessarily in that order.
Cheers, BostonTim
 
Jim McMahon: best QB ever who was poked in the eye with a fork. True story.

Imagine if a QB dared to taunt Goodell the way McMahon did with Rozelle? Emperor Goodell and his giant ego wouldn't stand for that...
 
Needz moar times. :coffee:

(HSanders' hatred of Jay Cutler is a source of constant amusement to me)
 
Needz moar times. :coffee:

(HSanders' hatred of Jay Cutler is a source of constant amusement to me)

She posted often in the Did The Bears Overpay For Cutler? thread.

That thread covers six years of Cutler's career. Two playoff games.

Just for comparison purposes, Brady averages two playoff games per year.
 
She posted often in the Did The Bears Overpay For Cutler? thread.

That thread covers six years of Cutler's career. Two playoff games.

Just for comparison purposes, Brady averages two playoff games per year.

I still don't think they overpaid. Unless you could guarantee they tank the year Luck comes out or something - who's better that was available to them? Hoyer, maybe? Possibly Carson Palmer at one point? But everyone thought he was toast in Oakland.

And yes, he's better than Sid Luckman. Put Sid Luckman in his prime under center today and let's see how he does. :coffee:
 
My brother a huge bears fan. He said giving culter. That huge contracts was the stupidest mistake . The bears ever made culter a bum.
 
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