KC Joyner is front and center at the Jay Cutler firing line once again; this time taking centerstage at The Fifth Down, the NY Times football blog penning a piece titled “Sorry, Bears Fans, Cutler Isn’t the Answer”.  Let me pull some of his gems from the post and address them one at a time:

Now I understand that fan scrutiny comes with the territory, so I don’t mind that, but what I don’t understand is why those fans are treating Cutler differently than they did either Grossman or Kyle Orton.

I guess the easy answer is because we haven’t actually seen him play a real game in the Bears orange and blue yet.  I know that all of the high brows on the east coast view Chicago as a bunch of SNL’s SuperFans, but give us some credit.  We may be loyal to a fault, but we’ll also take someone to task when it’s deserved.  I guarantee, if Cutler has a bad game, there will be people calling local radio shows for Caleb Hanie to get the nod at QB or wishing Kyle Orton was back here.  As Brett suggest in the Comments, let’s see Jay actually play a game with the Bears before we throw him under the bus.

Grossman was on fire during the first part of Chicago’s Super Bowl season, and yet as soon as he had the bad game against Miami, it seemed the entire city turned on him.

When a normal QB has a bad game, it’s all well and good.  When Grossman has a bad game, it’s historically bad.  Here’s Grossman’s stat line from that game against Miami, a 31-13 home loss:  18 out of 42 for 210 yards.  1 TD and 3 INT’s.  3 sacks for 21 yards with a lost fumble for a whopping 36.1 Passer Rating. This was the game where Grossman practically handed the ball to Jason Taylor because he claimed he didn’t see him.  Huh?  Check out the game recap and video summary of the game here.

I also don’t understand why there seems to be such excitement about Cutler. Yes, he threw for over 4,500 yards last year, but that was in large part because he put the ball up a whopping 616 times.

So Grossman put it up 42 times for 210 yards, yet Joyner’s article talks about how many times Cutler put it up to amass his bawdy yardage stats last year.  Pick a lane, KC!

The only reason I can come up with as to why Bears fans are reacting like this is that the quarterback position has been such a headache for them over the years that they will do just about anything to make it go away. If that means ignoring Cutler’s shortcomings so that at least one off-season goes by without having to wonder if their quarterback’s play will measure up, they’ll do it just for the temporary peace of mind. I do admire that kind of team passion and loyalty, but I’d admire it a bit more if it were done by hoping that Cutler could improve his game rather than by backing his mixed bag of performance history.

I don’t recall anyone ignoring Cutler’s shortcomings because last time I check, he didn’t play a game here yet.  I think we all agree we’d like to see Jay improve his game, just like we’d like to see everyone improve.  Let’s just see a real game to set the bar and go from there.

BEAR DOWN!!!

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If former coaches Mike Ditka and Tony Dungy aren’t dogging him, someone else is.  The bulls eye was squarely on Jay Cutler’s back as KC Joyner was stirring it up.  In a recent online chat, he fielded a number of Jay Cutler questions:

Alex (Chicago,IL)
How well do you think Jay Cutler will do with the Bears this year?

KC Joyner(4:10 PM)
I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again – Cutler will make Bears fans remember Rex Grossman. He’ll make just as many crazy passes but won’t suffer the Grossman fate because Chicago’s fan base is so in love with him that they will forgive the nutty throws he makes in ways that they never forgave Grossman.

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