Three months ago today, Bears fans found their team in a situation that none of them could have legitimately predicted last summer: The Bears were one game away from the Super Bowl. The Bears were predicted to finish near the bottom of the standings in 2010 and the team ended up surprising, and exciting, all of us with an NFC North Division title and a trip to the NFC Championship against the arch rival Green Bay Packers.
That excitement faded away in the championship as the Bears played sluggishly and when Bears quarterback Jay Cutler left the game with a Grade 2 MCL tear in his left knee.
Cutler injured his knee sometime late in the first half of the game but was able to play out the rest of the 2nd quarter and the first series of the 3rd quarter. After that first series, it was decided by the Bears’ staff that Cutler was going to be removed from the game permanently. Cutler roamed the sidelines for the rest of the game, watching backup quarterbacks Todd Collins and Caleb Hanie finish the game.
We all know what happened next. Many talking heads around the NFL rushed to their Twitter pages to publically rip Cutler for “quitting” on the team and question his toughness.
Former NFL player and jerk, Deion Sanders, said on his Twitter page “Im telling u in the playoffs u must drag me off the field. All the medicine in pro lockerooms this dude comes out! I apologize bear fans!”
To be honest though, I’m not really concerned about what Sanders thinks. He’s a part of the national media and he doesn’t follow the Bears as closely as local media and actual Bears fans. Besides, who would take Sanders’ statement seriously anyway? The guy was an utter failure in the art of tackling and had some questionable injuries of his own during his playing days.
I also didn’t care about ESPN’s and Fox’s opinion on the matter either but what really bothered me were the Bears fans who heavily criticized Cutler for coming out of the game. The most idiotic of fans were making videos of themselves burning Cutler jerseys and posting them on Youtube before the NFC Championship was even over.
Even now, three months later, some Bears fans still continue to bash Cutler. I’ve come across message boards and other social media outlets where Cutler is still being called a quitter and other worse names. To those Bears fans, come to your senses.
Did you really want Cutler to continue playing and risk further injury to the knee? Further injury could have been career threatening. If he continued to play, the Bears would have been gambling with Cutler’s career and the future of the team’s most important position…the quarterback.
Cutler was anything but a quitter this past season. Cutler was sacked 52 times in 2010…52 times. He was nearly murdered in an October 3rd game against the New York Giants, being sacked 9 times and getting a concussion in the process.
Cutler has moments where he looks uninterested on the field but never once did he complain about his atrocious offensive line. The man was running for his life all season and never criticized the guys on that line. Hit after hit and sack after sack, Cutler kept playing with the exception of one game where he was forced to sit out because of the concussion.
Jay Cutler is the most talented quarterback the Bears have ever had in the modern day NFL. He needs to improve his footwork and make better decisions when throwing the ball but he has all the intangibles of being a franchise quarterback. If you aren’t seeing these things then you’re not paying attention. If you’re saying the Bears need to start Caleb Hanie over Cutler next year then you should be forbidden from watching NFL football.
It’s time for the Cutler-bashing Bears fans to look at the real problems with this team, which are personnel issues.
Open your eyes and quit being ignorant…
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