Sprained MCL for Cutler

According to several reports, it sounds like it’s official: Jay Cutler suffered a sprained MCL in the game yesterday.  Knowing that now, should he have continued playing?

My thoughts: I’m glad he didn’t, because the offense functioned better when Hanie was in the game, so questioning a player’s toughness is irrelevant and not worth fighting over.  Having seen the beating Cutler has taken this year, it’s hard to question the toughness of a player who has been working toward a goal only to get hurt.  Giving Cutler the benefit, I assume that if he felt he could play, he would have.  As for his performance, read the post below.

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Hanie: Chicago's best shot at victory Sunday

In the end, it played out as expected: when it mattered most, one team played with poise, with purpose, and maintained control throughout the game.  The other team came out embarrassingly flat, dug itself a hole, seemingly found some late inspiration in an attempt to save face, but it was too little, too late.  Bears fans have seen this scenario too many times before.

Did the defense play well?  Yes, but not until they failed to show up for the first two minutes of the game as Aaron Rodgers methodically picked apart Chicago on the first drive resulting in a clean, efficient, quick score which showed the home team that the Packers were well prepared.  Playing from behind is never a recipe for success, so as much as the defense did to stabilize the game the rest of the way (only allowing one more TD), they put the offense in an uphill position before they held the ball.

Now for Cutler and the offense.  I see no need to comment on Jay Cutler’s injured knee because, for one, it’s pure speculation at this point (although an MCL injury seems to be the latest word), and two, if there’s one thing Cutler has shown over time is the ability to stay on the field.  Therefore, I can only comment on Cutler’s play in the NFC Championship Game.  One word comes to mind: poop.  In one half, Jay Cutler demonstrated everything that makes him frustrating, specifically incredible inconsistency when accuracy is most needed.

You don’t have to be an NFL analyst to see that Cutler was throwing off his heels, making ill advised throws (some seemed like bail out “lobs”), and showing a general disinterest.  His mood and mindset is irrelevant if his play is akin to his perceived talent, but the truth is that Cutler threw several balls asking to be intercepted but was lucky his numbers weren’t even worse than the end result.  Injury or not, the Bears were better off without Cutler in the second half.

Think about the last statement: the Bears were better off without Cutler in the second half. Not matter how much a Cutler fan you might be, it’s hard to argue against that statement.  In the NFC Championship Game, the Chicago Bears had a better chance of coming from behind and stealing a victory with Caleb Hanie behind center than Jay Cutler, healthy or otherwise.  Let that sink in for awhile, and readers will suddenly understand the point of this website.  Would that ever be the case with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers?  Never, but many people want to put Cutler at the same level as Rodgers and others and it’s simply not the case.

It’s not that a QB isn’t allowed to have a bad game (even the “unstoppable” Tom Brady and the Patriots failed to sniff the AFC Championship Game), but it’s Cutler’s overall decision-making and attitude in his “bad” games that make it obvious that his team is not going to win on that day.

Cutler was far from the only reason the Bears lost yesterday.  The lack of any offensive playmakers outside of Matt Forte was reason enough to think back about the early round picks Chicago could have used on developing the offense and the line while letting a QB like Kyle Orton carry the current team to its potential.  Fans, even Rex Grossman carried the Bears to a Super Bowl matchup, so don’t fire back that Orton couldn’t have done the same.  If you have the opportunity to get an elite QB like Manning, Brady, Brees, Rodgers, etc., I am all for making the deal to get it done.  Unfortunately, Jay Cutler proved that he isn’t one of those on Sunday.

It’s true: Jay Cutler’s postseason record is spotless.  He has never lost a playoff game in the NFL.  Ok, it’s also true that Cutler has never PLAYED in a playoff game, but let’s not argue over semantics.

As much as this site has questioned Cutler’s ability over the years, I’m not ready to dismiss the Bears chances simply because the starting quarterback is playing in his first playoff game.  It’s still just a football game, and if there’s one positive thing to take away from Jay Cutler’s penchant for the aloof, it’s that he doesn’t seem to get overhyped for a game, which is a good trait to have for an NFL quarterback.  See that, I just paid Cutler a compliment.

On the other side, Matt Hasselbeck will be starting his 11th playoff game of his career.  Does that give Hasselbeck and the Seahawks the edge then?  Not at all.  Hasselbeck is 5-5 in the playoffs, so while experience can’t hurt, talent and preparedness still matter, and the Bears are more talented than Seattle.  In fact, in Hasselbeck’s last playoff game against the Bears, it was a similar situation in that the Bears were home, they were the better team, but they had a QB (Grossman) who only had one playoff game under his belt (a loss to Carolina a year earlier).  The result?  An uninspired performance by Hasselbeck and an overtime win by the Bears.

I’m still not confident in Chicago’s roster in terms of it being talented enough to win a Super Bowl, but for this Sunday, the Bears are the better team and should dispose of Hasselbeck and his squad from Seattle.  The Seahawks won the regular season battle, but I foresee Jay Cutler getting his first playoff win and preserving his spotless postseason record.

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After a very weak performance to round out the regular season, Jay Cutler saw his QB Rating (or his Passer Rating as it’s more often called) drop to 86.3.  Meanwhile, Kyle Orton kept his comfortable seat on the bench in Denver as Tim Tebow tried his hand at this NFL QB thing, giving Orton a final Rating of 87.5 for the year.  What do these numbers tell us?  For starters, we know that it’s a mess of calculations involving yards, attempts, completions, touchdowns, and interceptions.  In the end, wins matter most but despite having SEVEN more wins as a starter than Orton this year, Cutler’s rating was lower.  Is that justified?

NFL stats are always more “effect” than “cause,” and the Passer Rating is no different.  Just as it can easily be proven that “winning teams run the ball more often” is effect rather than cause (they run because they are winning and want to minimize risk while maximizing clock usage), the same can be said of the Passer Rating since yards play a large part in the equation.  Orton was given a terrible team this year, and with no running game (free Twinkie to someone outside of Denver who can name a healthy Broncos RB) and frequent deficits, his only choice was to throw and throw often.  It is a credit to Kyle that in throwing for over 3,600 yards, he only threw 9 interceptions, but the reality is that many of these yards likely came against prevent and sagging defenses.  No defense wants to give up points, but when one team is down by several scores late in a game, the defense is likely to sag, give up chunks of yardage in the passing game, and with a break here or there, the worse team can score on occasion.  Orton took advantage of these situations and finished the year on the bench but with a pedestrian Passer Rating, which sums up his talent fairly well.

Now let’s look at the best quarterbacks in the league this year.  In no particular order, it’s hard to argue that Brady, Vick, Rodgers, and Rivers weren’t the four best QBs in 2010.  What do they have in common?  They’re the only QBs with a Passer Rating above 100 this season.  Despite the extremely small sample size, one has to admit that, in the long run, Passer Rating does a decent job of reflecting a quarterback’s performance.  Once again, Cutler’s 86.3 rating would indicate that he is an average QB. 

Rather than take shots at Cutler for not being better and living up to his so-called “potential,” maybe Bears fans should be ecstatic that the athlete with the consistently mediocre numbers actually overachieved and got 10 wins out of that 86.3 rating and played a role in getting the Bears the #2 seed in the NFC.  Don’t hate on Jay: celebrate Chicago’s good fortune in going 11-5 given the situation.  A couple more weeks of anomalies on the field and a Super Bowl is a real possibility.

(image from BleacherReport.com)