VanC
Well-known member
john250":13umt60g said:Cutler's teamates were vigorous in his defense. Torn ligaments (MCL) are pretty painful, I'd think. And his disinterested facial expressions are probably expressions of the size of the pain killer he was given.
Thanks, John. It's refreshing to see someone talk about Cutler with a sense of fairness.
I usually listen to sports talk radio for about an hour in the morning before and on the way to work and then catch a little more during breaks and at lunch. Naturally, the big topic of the day wasn't the two conference champioship games or the Super Bowl matchup. Nope, it was all about Jay Cutler and whether he's tough enough or not. People were saying he should have been back in there and they didn't even know what the injury was yet. Talk about a bunch of morons!
Turns out Cutler has a Grade II MCL tear. It basically means you can stand and even walk, but not much else. I had a similar injury from playing softball back when I was about his age. I missed 6 weeks of work. Yeah, my job involved a lot of walking, lifting and carrying, not to mention using a clutch 4 or 5 hundred times a day, but it ain't exactly what an NFL quarterback has to do. So, yeah, let's run 'ol Jay back out there behind the worse pass blockers in the league with Clay Matthews bearing down on him and no possible way to escape and see how he does. Good call, people.
Now for the toughness thing: The fact is there isn't one QB in the league that's taken more punishment than Cutler the past 2 years. Heck he got sacked 9 times in ONE HALF vs the Giants earlier this year. That's a whole season's worth for some. Over that time he's missed one game with a concussion. ONE GAME!! Other than that one game you know what he did? He got back up and went back to the huddle and ran the next play. Or he went back to the sidelines and prepared for the next series. He didn't whine to the refs, he didn't complain that his OL was like a sieve, and he didn't point out that he had a corps of receivers that didn't know how to run routes, didn't know the playbook half the time, and weren't big enough and strong enough to go up and get the dam ball with a defender draped all over them. Nope, he just played football. Ok, maybe not very well at times, but he played. :lol2:
Don't get me wrong. I'm no Jay Cutler lover. He'll probably never be in the Hall of Fame but if they could shore up the OL and get him a couple of bonafide receivers I think he could be a quality NFL quarterback for a few years. And he might be the horse's ass that the media portrays him to be, although I learned long ago not to believe everything the media belches out. I don't know. I've never met him. But anyone that questions his toughness is full of crap.