Early in the third quarter of their playoff game against the Green Bay Packers, Jay Cutler left the game with an apparent knee injury. However, at no point did it appear that Cutler actually injured his knee (which they are now claiming is a torn MCL). In fact, when asked directly about it, coach Lovie Smith directly contradicted his statements in back to back questions. When asked what happened, Smith claimed that he took a shot to the knee at the end of the second half. However, when asked a follow up question, Smith said the following: "He hurt his knee and he was out, all right? There's nothing else for me to tell you on that," Smith said. "I don't know exactly when it happened. He couldn't go, and we moved on. Let's go to some other questions, how about that?"
Usually, when someone injures themselves to the severity of what is being claimed about Cutler, they are receiving extensive treatment either on the sidelines or in the locker room. In fact, they are kept off that leg and carted into the locker room more often than not. You definitely don't see them wandering about the sidelines with their head down, with a look of complete apathy.
Cutler, for all of his talent, is not someone that wins football games. He makes stupid decisions with the football, throwing into double and triple coverage because he thinks that his arm is strong enough to get it there. He does not take the safe throws underneath to get the first down, because he is looking for the home run ball every time. He just doesn't have a head for the game. In fact, Jay Cutler is a lot like Brett Favre, only without the great receivers to bail him out for every misguided throw that he makes.
At this point of his career arc, Cutler has a lot of similarities to another quarterback with all of the measurables who could never win - Jeff George. Both possessed strong arms. Both put up gaudy stat lines. Yet, neither have ever been able to take a team to the Super Bowl, or win anything of consequence. The reason? Neither Cutler nor George were capable of making adjustments to their games nor were they capable of actually being a leader of their teams.
Given the fiasco that occurred last night, is it possible that the Bears would go in another direction at quarterback? This year's draft is anticipated to have a lot of solid quarterback prospects. Several big name quarterbacks should be made available by the teams they are presently on. Nothing is guaranteed for Cutler in Chicago right now.
Yesterday proved that teams cannot win without a leader at the quarterback position. Jay Cutler is not a leader. The Bears will not make the Super Bowl until they can fix that situation.
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