Jay Cutler the Leader, He’s Proving It
The Chicago Bears have again found a way to clench defeat from the jaws of victory. This time it was at the hands of another divisional opponent, the Minnesota Vikings.
While coming into this season a lot of fans thought this team would be hard to watch, and so far that hasn’t been the case. Sure they are 0-3 in the division, sure they cut their best defensive player, sure losing can be frustrating, and sure it feels like the team will have somewhat of a make shift roster going forward… but it’s seasons like this where we learn what the team has in certain players, and that has been somewhat enjoyable.
Terrible terrible terrible Bears loss – that's a great example of why you should never bet on them during the Cutler/Any Shaky Coach era.
— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) November 1, 2015
While Chicago Bears fans are learning that the Bears are just good enough to hang in games, something surprising — and much to the chagrin of Bill Simmons and many other haters– is Jay Cutler is proving that he’s a leader.
Not only has Cutler played exceptional throughout this season — 1,442 passing yards, 8 TDs, 4 INTs, 87.5 QB rating — his play only tells half the story. The other, and more impressive half, has been his leadership on the field and off of it.
In so many seasons past, we heard stories upon stories of coaches or personnel giving the canned message that, “Jay is great and certainly the leader of the team.” Of course come the third week of the season cameras catch Jay braiding an offensive lineman on the sidelines, yelling f%&@ off to one of the coordinators, and eventually getting another coach fired.
This season, knock on wood, feels different. John Fox or any of the team’s current coaches never really made that familiar proclamation. In fact we heard now about how the quarterback didn’t need to be a leader, than ringing endorsements for Jay.
Maybe that was the difference? Maybe Jay just needed to be treated like one of 52, rather than a prima dona.
So far Jay has responded, and while his play has been very good, the Bears record had overshadowed his play this season. Regardless of record, his teammates have noticed his efforts. They’ve noticed Jay Cutler the leader.
“It’s always exciting when Jay makes a run,” Bears tight end Martellus Bennett said. “And when he lowers his shoulder you get revved up. But at the same time you’re like, ‘Dude, what’s up?’ I think he could’ve beat him to the pylon, but I think [Cutler] caught him off-guard when he cut up because [Smith] thought he could beat him to the pylon too. He plays with max effort every single week. He catches a lot of flak all the time but the guy goes out there every single week and gives it everything he has. That’s the only thing you can ask for from your quarterback, and he’s making runs, he’s making throws, he’s making checks. He’s playing phenomenal right now. I’m very proud of him.”
This is the same Martellus Bennett that just over this past offseason said,
“Why does everyone always assume the quarterback is the leader? Leading the offense and leading the team are two different things. Sometimes I like Cutty, and sometimes I don’t. When I think of a leader, I think, ‘If he started a company, would guys come to work for him?’ There’s a lot of guys on our team who, if they started a business, it’d be, ‘[Expletive] you, I’m gonna go work at McDonald’s.’”
It looks like Bennett would go work for Cutler in 2015. And so will Jeremy Langford.
Jay Cutler on Langford’s drop: “He’s going to be a heck of a player for us. I told him that one play doesn’t win or lose a football game.”
— Adam Hoge (@AdamHoge) November 1, 2015
This is another sign of Cutler’s maturity and leadership. In years past he may have gone more indepth into the play, gave reasons for the drop, blaming a poor route or even giving a, “we all would like to have that one back. ” Not this year, not at all. Instead Cutler puts Langford under his arm, letting him know it is ok to move on from that play, and showing that he still has confidence in the young runningback.
With the Bears looking at a stretch of games that could find them at 2-9 going into Green Bay on thanksgiving, and fans begining to drool over the possibility of landing a top five draft pick, and Jay Cutler’s successor, maybe the team should take a deeper look at the man under center right now. He might have always been the right answer.
