UMFan83

How did him trying to play through his injury during the first series of the 2nd half hurt his perception of being tough? They said on the radio that Cutler limped into the tunnel before the half was over, so it was known he was hurt. At the game, I saw him go out for that first series and immediately thought it was awesome that he was gonna keep playing, because I heard leg injury and assumed he did something to his knee or ankle. When he didn't come back in, I immedately assumed that he must have been really hurt if he couldnt go after that first series. Plus the pass he made was pretty obvious that something was wrong.

Is this QB tough enough? http://www.gifsoup.com/view/18884/cutler-helicopter-o.gif

And and then when he can't do it, he gets killed in the press and by the meatballs/heads out there that think the QB is the only person that affects the passing game.

Who was it earlier in the offseason we were rumored to be trading to Detroit for him? There was a very brief rumor about it.

The story is mutating: http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/why-jay-cutler-quitting-on-chicago-bears-makes-us-so-livid-012411 So now you're mad at Cutler because he doesn't look like he's having as much fun as you would have playing out there? How can you actually write this garbage, much less proof read it, present it to an editor, having him proof read, without realizing how dumb it sounds?

Also, no I still don't believe in the SI Cover Jinx, but who were the 2 teams on the cover of SI this week? The Bears and the Jets right? Also, Cutler was very promiently featured on that cover. Of course the Jets and Bears were the 2 underdogs and Cutler is the star QB for the Bears so of course he's gonna be on the cover, but don't let facts get in the way of a good jinx.

One more thing...ive seen people suggest cutler should have taken a cortisone shot and gotten back out there. First of all, I am pretty sure you need to let the shot sit in for a period of time before you can play in a game. Second of all, you cannot give cortisone shots to diabetics because it immediate spikes your blood sugar levels. So unless you wanted Cutler to stumble out there wobbly and foaming from the mouth, that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

OMG that scumbag Cutler is too hurt to finish the game but not hurt enough to go out to dinner afterwards with his celebrity girlfriend. I want him outta here!!!!!! /meatheads

The Trib really isn't help fan the flames:

Angelo signed Thomas Jones too, right? He also traded him for what, a 5th round draft choice? I believe it was Jones and Bears 2nd for Jets 2nd.

Not sure why Muhammed and Taylor are on your list. Moose was ok but nowhere near the WR we thought we were getting from Carolina and showed up both Orton and Grossman when they were playing poorly/didn't get him the ball enough. Taylor spent most of the year dodging speculation that he was helping the Vikings by sabotaging the Bears. I would add Rueben Brown to the good FA signings. He was past his prime but he still had some really solid years with the Bears. I think Angelo thought he was getting another Brown when he signed Pace before last year, but that definitely didn't work out.

No, the worst part of it is that our franchise QB has a serious injury. It's a bit of a stretch to label it serious. I thought the worst case sceario with the most severe MCL tear was 6-7 months until they are ready to go again. That would put us in the July/August range. Would probably miss a lot of training camp but no real games, unless they switch to 18 game season with just 2 preseason games.

Yeah and although its a bit annoying, its perfectly fine for the meatheads to think whatever they want. But when the talking heads and the former players are validating their thoughts, thats when you are in big trouble. I've become extremely disillusioned with the media over the last 6-7 months, first with the LeBron James/My (made up source) says.. saga and now with seeing how much power these talking heads have to sway the general public towards an opinion. 20-30 years ago, there were probably 1% as many talking heads out there, and the ones that were out there had earned the publics trust (for the most part) with sound judgement and level headed thinking. These people you could actually call experts. But these days, everyone is a talking head. Every 2 bit sports cable network has opinionated commentators, former players who were known for their low game IQ on the field can now get on a show and spout garbage, even active players can get on their soapbox while on their couch and sway opinion. The meathead public seems to treat every single person that comes on their TV or computer with an opinion as an expert. Once an idea catches on, groupthink takes over, and suddenly people are talking about things as if they are fact. Now even though people will take back what they said yesterday, the damage is done. The general public will now associate Cutler with quitter in the back of their minds, and Cutler will continue to be scrutinized before every big game, or every injury he gets during a game. And when they aren't talking about that, they will be talking about how Cutler is an INT machine that can't be trusted, and people crack jokes about him constantly. (on a similar tangent: I saw just how bad the perception of Cutler is with fans of other teams at the game yesterday. I midway through the 1st quarter a Packer fan in front of me started gettnig frustrated and said, completely seriously, (paraprasing) "dammit why hasnt jay cutler thrown any interceptions yet? The bears are getting completely lucky right because Cutler always throws 5-6 passes that should be interceptions every game." I honestly feel like the general public looks at him on the same level as Rex Grossman. No one fears him, no one expects him to beat their team. They all expect a few good throws mixed with several terrible INTs/bad passes from him and that's just not fair.)

Yes but the players he's targeted are backups on other teams, or former solid lineman on the other side of their peak years. I'm not saying some of them didn't work out. In the mid 00's we had a pretty decent, albeit patchwork line. I'm just say I don't personally expect Angelo to head into the offseason looking to get one of those elite guys. Most fans recognized the dire state of the oline 2 years ago and yet since then Angelo has made only very minor moves at that position group. And I think the fact that Tice was able to get that line to improve to at least below average instead of pathetically awful is enough evidence for him to continue believing that he knows what he's doing with his philosophy of patching together offensive lines.

I gotta take the Braves rotation. 1996: Maddux 19-2 1.63 ERA .811 WHIP 262 ERA+ Glavine 15-10 2.98 ERA 1.30 WHIP 147 ERA+ Smoltz 24-8 2.94 ERA 1.01 WHIP 149 ERA+ Avery's career had started to bottom out at that point (that year he was 7-10 with a 4.47 ERA but was 2 years removed from a 18-6 2.94 season). Funny though the 5th starter on that rotation, albeit not nearly at the peak of his career was Jason Schmidt, who had some good seasons in his own right. This part doesnt add to the argument but if you took those 5's top seasons.... Maddux, 1996 - 19-2 1.63 ERA, .811 WHIP 8.8 WAR 262 ERA+ Glavine, 1991 - 20-11 2.55 ERA 1.09 WHIP 7.4 WAR 153 ERA+ Smoltz, 1996 - 24-8 2.94 ERA 1.01 WHIP 6.1 WAR 147 ERA+ Avery, 1993 - 18-6 2.94 ERA 1.16 WHIP, 4.5 WAR 138 ERA+ Schmidt, 2003 - 17-5 2.34 ERA 0.95 WHIP, 5.9 WAR 180 ERA+ That's pretty unstoppable, except Schmidts came almost a decade later. Now look at the Phillie 4's top season Halladay, 2002 19-7 2.93 ERA 1.19 WHIP 6.9 WAR 159 ERA+ Lee, 2008 22-3 2.54 ERA 1.11 WHIP 7.3 WAR 168 ERA+ Hamels, 2008 14-10 3.09 ERA 1.08 WHIP 4.4 WAR 142 ERA+ Oswalt, 2002 19-9 3.01 ERA 1.19 WHIP 6.2 WAR 144 ERA+ Numbers 2-4 are pretty comparible, but no one on the Phils rotation has come close to the numbers Maddux was putting up in the mid 90's, which takes the cake in this competition.

Also, I am not counting on FA. I think what happened to the Bears last offseason was more of less Angelo trying to save his ass rather than a shift in philosophy. I doubt the Bears target any of the top tier of FAs this year. James Jones seems like a good add though. I like that name.

I forgot about Major Wright. Can he play SS? I'm gonna guess one of him or Harris can, otherwise it would have been odd to reacquire Harris, while making Wright your 1st draft pick in the draft (3rd round albeit).

The more I look back on the game, the more I want to rip the coaching staff for some of the things they did. I'll try to put together a list of everything that bothered me and leave it for everyone else to pick apart/agree with. 1. I don't know if this is on coaching, but the defense did not look prepared on the first series. Not sure if it was just a matter of GBs staff outthinking the Bears staff and coming out with a better game plan to start, or if it was the Bears no executing, etc. It's hard to tell watching from the stands. But it was disturbing to see the receivers have such huge holes right in the middle of the field to stand there and wait for the ball to get to them. I thought the adjustments were good, and correct me if I'm wrong it seemed like the Bears went away from the Cover 2 for a bit and even showed some man coverage. 2. Some of the play calling early on was questionable. Down 7-0 backed up on your goal line on 3rd and 9 was an awful time to run a handoff up the middle for no gain. They basically said, f it, we're not taking a safety, you can have great field position. And that's what happened. Eventually the Packers scored because of that field position. It's the NFC title game, IMO you have to trust your line to block or its going to be a long day regardless. Drop Cutler back and let him try for the first down. 3. Punting from the 31 was odd as well. We really needed 3 points at the time. I also noticed McCarthy opted to punt around the 35 yard line 2-3 times in the game as well on the same side of the field, so maybe the coaches knew something about that end of the field that we didn't. But I too saw Gould (and Crosby) booting 50 yarders to that end of the field pregame and at halftime with no problem at all, so who the hell knows. 4. The end around at the end of the game was one of those plays that even if it had worked out, you are thinking to yourself 'thank God we survived that play call'. pre-timeout, I was thinking that a run play in this situation would probably work out, and when I saw Forte getting the handoff I was ready to praise Martz for the play call as the Packers obviously werent prepared to stop it. It's tough to know if he would have gotten a nice gain from it because the Packers D stopped playing immediately at the whistle, but it was pretty clear he was getting a first. When I saw the play at first, I figured that Martz called that handoff, and then didn't see people lining up right so called a timeout. Annoying and avoidable but at least he was calling the right play. And while I hated the play to Bennett from the start, I figured that Martz didn't want to go back to the handoff with the Packers already expecting it so he went with that. Still an awful play call but slightly more understandable than what really happened. If you didn't see, what happened was they called the end around to Bennett, Hanie was having issues with his speaker, couldnt understand the play call so audibled to that running play. When Martz saw that his play wasn't being run, he called the TO and switched back to the Bennett play. It enrages me that Martz thought that was the best play call in that situation. Has that play ever worked in the 3 years we've run it occasionally? No. You need 3 yards, you cannot afford to be stopped at the line or for a loss. That play would be ok if you were trying to gamble a little bit and can risk a possible stop at the LOS for the opportunity to get a huge gain. Because on a play like that, you are either gettnig a 1-2 yard gain, or you are catching the defense offguard and gettnig a 10+ yard run. Very rarely does there seem to be something other than that. So in the same play Martz wasted a TO and wasted a down, and all the momentum was gone at that point. 5. The biggest coaching decision was made several weeks ago and that was to play Todd Collins as the backup QB. I don't care what the hell you saw in practice when players are going at 85% of game speed. Todd Collins had one of the worst performances I've ever seen out of a QB against the worst team in the league this year. In the other game he played this year, he looked just as bad. Meanwhile, when Hanie came in for the Giants game, he was the only one of the 3 QBs to even move the ball against the Giants D. They say Collins was the backup because he had playoff experience and Martz didnt trust Hanie with such little experience. You know what, when you are 40 years old and have been playing in the league for 17 years, I could give a [expletive] what your experience is when you are short arming passes all over the field. Not one pass that Collins threw this year was one I would consider a "good" pass. There's no excuse for it. Screw you Lovie for giving Martz control over that decision. Screw you Martz for blindly looking past the obvious and sticking with the guy you begged Lovie to guarantee money to bring in, and screw you Collins for not just retiring when you realized you sucked (only half kidding). There's more I'm sure I'm missing. You can't overlook the fact that the Packers ran all over our defense in the 1st half. That wasn't all on coaching. The play in the 2nd half was rather even, but the Packers looked like the better team in the first half. The coaches had an uphill battle to beat this team, so I'm not saying they were the sole reason we lost. But gosh it would be nice to praise a coaching staff for helping the team win. We don't get to do that enough.

Yeah DT will be a priority for the Bears. I would be stunned if Tommie Harris isn't cut this offseason. It seems like a no brainer move for the Bears. Now if there was no cap, I'd be against the move, but there will be so I more or less think he'll be gone. Here are the positions we could stand to upgrade on: WR: We could technically make it to a SB with this WR corps, but I think it would help Jay and the offense out immensely if we could get a bigger experienced WR for Jay to fling the ball up for grabs when nothing else is there for him. Better than throwing it up for grabs to Knox. Doesn't have to be a pro bowler, but lets face it, a majority of big WRs that can go up and get it are usually in that type of skill level. O-line: All over. Kreutz is a UFA but I can't see either side leaving this relationship even though he's clearly on the decline and randomly forgot how to snap the ball during the 2nd half. Williams is fine enough for now. Webb showed promise so I'd look at keeping him unless a viable upgrade is there. Unfortunately, unless you want to let Williams try his hand at LT next year, that would be a place we could upgrade. Get Omiyale outta here. Cutler is never going to get any respect in the press and by the idiot fans unless the o-line blocks well for him. If they don't, you will continue to see an inconsistent offense. RB, TE, QB are fine right now. On defense, we don't need as much short term help but we do need some long term planning here. In 3 years the only starts I expect to see still starting on this team are Peppers and Briggs. Peanut, Urlacher and Harris might also be starting but its not in stone. Adams, Pisa, Jennings and Tommie are people that can be upgraded. Idonije is probably too old to count on starting 3 years from now. And Daniel Manning is probably going to leave via FA this offseason unless Lovie's mancrush on him wins out. So we're looking at anywhere from 6-9 defensive positions that need to turn over in the next 3 years. We do have a few in house options at some of the positions. I know the Bears are high on Joshua Moore at CB, and I think its likely he will be starting at CB next year in Jennings spot. I am a big fan of Corey Wootten and I think/hope the management is and would think he could be starting at DE opposite Peppers in the near future, possibly as soon as next year. And Nick Roach doesn't have a ton of upside over Pisa, but is clearly good enough to hold the fort down at OLB alongside Urlacher and Briggs. So I guess ideally we're looking at a depth chart like this in 3 years. Harris-New Guy Briggs-Urlacher-Roach Tilman Peppers-New Guy-New Guy-Wootten Moore But I'm almost positive that I'm missing a guy or two on our roster that management hopes to fill a role on defense. But anyways, on defense our biggest priority should be DT, with FS and probably CB also needs. For this draft, I'd focus on Tackles, DTs and WRs in that order, unless there is an obvious BPA.

It is a little funny how all season people complained about our luck with no injuries and facing 3rd string QBs, and then in the NFC title game we suffer an injury to our most important player and the Packers have to beat our 3rd string QB to get into the Super Bowl. Funny how that works out.

We also aren't sure just how many plays Cutler tried to go on that injured knee. Or has it been confirmed which play caused the injury and that he didn't play at all after that? He said he hurt it in the endzone when they had the ball on the drive starting at the 1.5 yard line. Which makes me wonder if I can fully blame Cutler for underthrowing that ball to Knox that was intercepted. I am not sure he knew about the severity of the injury and what he could and couldnt do on it. You dont know if you can throw the deep ball until you actually throw one.

I think it just proves that most people and the media do not like Jay Cutler for whatever stupid reason and are looking for any sort of reason to dog him in the media. This morning I am actually noticing a sort of reversing of all the venom being spewed last night. A couple of people who ripped on Cutler on twitter last night are now taking crap for it on their pages. I am hoping the meatheads can settle down and let this die quickly before Cutler becomes even more disillusioned. Probably wouldnt make a difference in his play, but I don't want our star QB to forever hate his own fan base because of a loud minority of idiots.

I think the comments were more about sticking up for Kyle Orton and saying we didn't need to make a change because everyone believed in Kyle than Brian taking a direct shot at Cutler. Of course, there was obviously an indirect shot at Cutler to even make a public statement like that, but whatever.

Then maybe he should have stayed in the clubhouse? Of course he'd have been attacked for that since you see players on the sidelines with crutches all the time after they are injured in a game. Problem is a lot of people don't understand knee injuries and they see Cutler able to stand up and walk around and it makes them go "wth?" The funny thing is..if he stays in the locker room and isn't seen in the entire 2nd half, the critique becomes: Its the NFC title game, and Cutler can't be out there cheering on his teammates in his absence. Basically the only way Cutler wasn't gonna get ripped following his game was if he had an awesome 100+ QB rating day in a Bears win. Any other scenario and Cutler gets shredded today, and he is. Very unfairly I might add.

Also, I've seen a lot of people (the dumb ones who think Cutler quit) ripping him for being on the sideline and not getting treatment to come back in. Why havent people realized that once Hanie came in, Cutler could not go back in? So whether he's getting treatment on his knee or running the 400m hurdles on the sidelines, he's not coming back in. Fixing his knee on the sideline won't allow him to come back in, and doesn't make him any more likely to be ready for a potential Super Bowl game. So if he wants to stand there on the sidelines doing wahtever, so be it