Bears Blitz

Published by Josh McCain on January 24, 2011
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears

As I write this article, there has been no diagnosis on the health of Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler.  Once one is released, the people berating him might be proven right—or just may be proven wrong.

Being that I’m not a Bears fan, I can look at the Cutler situation without passion.  Them winning or losing yesterday would have little to do with my daily life.  I watched because I’m a football fan. 

As the second half began at Solider Field and Cutler was not quarterbacking the Bears, Twitter erupted with writers, players and fans questioning Cutler’s toughness.

The only thing that the Fox broadcast was saying was that he had a knee injury. 

And even though Cutler took a few hits, there was not one shot that showed any devastation to his knee.

All we know right now is that both Lovie Smith and Cutler have said the doctors and trainers prevented him from taking the field in the second half.

A lot of former players, Deion Sanders included, started jabbering that in a championship game you have to be dragged off the field.

Well, with the doctors being the ones to make the decision, not the coach nor the player, it sounds to me that was what metaphorically happened.

To question Cutler’s toughness without even knowing the extent of his injury is downright moronic.  Especially when you have a guy like Brian Urlacher saying in the postgame press conference that Cutler is one of the toughest players he knows.

Of course, they’re teammates and Urlacher is not going to publicly bash the team’s quarterback right after the game, but if he didn’t believe at least half of what he said he probably would have avoided the question or not answered it with as much passion in his voice as he did.

Even without knowing the extent of the injury, people went to talking about the time in 2006 when Philip Rivers played on a torn MCL in San Diego, so what about that?

First off, all the credit in the world to Rivers for doing that. 

However, he was playing in warm San Diego, Cutler was in frigid Chicago.  What was talked about more than anything during the game was that Cutler couldn’t loosen up the knee enough to plant his leg and throw.

And if Cutler can’t plant and throw the ball, him being tough or not is inconsequential since all he’ll be throwing at that point are easily intercepted ducks, and the Bears would be worse off. 

As shown in the second half, they were better off with a 100 percent Caleb Hanie than a 50 percent Jay Cutler.

Rivers was in warm climate where his ligaments and muscles would loosen easier and stay loose in the warm weather.

In the bitter cold of Chicago, if Culter was lucky enough to even loosen those muscles, they wouldn’t stay loose for long.  With them being tight, if he only had a partial tear, it wouldn’t take long for a worse injury to take place.

This is probably why the training staff wouldn’t let him back in.

We fans live and die with each game, but those are real men out their playing, and most of them have short careers and long, painful lives afterwards.

Even if it’s a championship on the line, going out their to risk season-ending, or even career-ending, injury is crazy.

You can argue Rivers did the same thing, but again, with the warmer weather his muscles and tendons would not tighten up so easily and his risk of further injury was lower.

Like I said, once all the tests are concluded, Cutler may only have a sprain, or he could have a full blown tear of his ACL, which (by the way) never fully heals to 100 percent, even after surgery.

So until then, I think people (especially those who have never played in the NFL), need to shut up about Cutler’s toughness.

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