Welcome to Chicago, Jay Cutler: Where Quarterbacks Come To Die
Published by Jake Karmel on November 25, 2009
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
There is a pattern here. The Bears have never had an All-Pro QB in the modern era. They’ve had only one QB Hall of Famer in 90 years.
Every great college QB prospect has turned into a bust. And now there are all the naysayers about Jay Cutler.
Is it that the Bears don’t know how to draft? Don’t know how to evaluate talent (although Burris, Quinn, Hutchinson, Moreno, and a few others make this a tough question)?
Is it the water in Chicago? I don’t think so.
Maybe it’s the Bears and not the QBs.
Why would any offensive-minded QB ever, I repeat ever, want to play in Chicago?
The Bears destroy any offensive-minded QB with their mindless and defenseless insistence on being called a “running team,” especially today when the rest of the NFL has passed them by in the air.
Marino, Montana, Elway, and Aikman could not have achieved the same success they did elsewhere if they had played on most Bears teams over the last 30 years. Now Jay Cutler is just the latest to be put through the career-destroying QB meat grinder in Chicago.
He is an extremely talented QB, but like any team athlete, he cannot do it alone. And I don’t just mean surrounding him with 10 other players that fit into what this particular QB is capable of doing.
Lord knows Cutler doesn’t even have three or four, let alone 10. But that’s just part of the problem. The real problem starts and ends with coaching and the organization’s overall philosophy.
The Bears insist on fitting Cutler—probably the most physically gifted QB I have ever seen in Chicago—into its standardized, one-size-fits-all playbook. They have not done anything to accommodate the team to Cutler’s talents, either with personnel or coaching.
Handing off to Matt Forte on first and 10 every time to run up the middle for a gain of two yards is the Bears’ forte. That’s usually followed by a screen play that always gets busted up, leaving third and long.
It’s way beyond predictable. It is comical.
They are the Keystone Cops of the NFL. FOX and CBS should have the “balloon” sound effects used for cartoons like the Roadrunner every time the Bears run an offensive play. Kaboom! Splat! Boink!
Why doesn’t Cutler roll out instead of standing in the collapsing pocket, throwing from his back foot all the time? Why don’t the Bears use misdirection plays more?
I’m no more of an offensive genius than Ron Turner, but I do know this much: After watching Cutler’s press conference last night I wanted to cry. He looked so broken and dispirited.
Another young gunslinger destroyed in the numbing inanity of the Bears organization.
If I were his agent I would pay the Bears to release him before he is turned into a quivering confused Rick Mirer, Cade McNown, or Rex Grossman.
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