(Source) At least 10 former Chicago Bears staffers from the Lovie Smith and Marc Trestman regimes said recently they believe the team can’t consistently compete for championships as long as it fields a lineup with Jay Cutler under center. That sentiment might explain why head coach John Fox and general manager Ryan Pace remain uncommitted to Cutler as the team’s starting quarterback for 2015. Deciding whether to commit to Cutler has a time element. If Cutler is on the Bears‘ roster on March 12, $10 million of his 2016 salary is guaranteed.
Cutler declined comment through a team spokesman. His agent, Bus Cook, said questions about whether the Bears feel they can win with Cutler should be directed to the team. Two teammates, who also asked to remain anonymous for this story, characterized Cutler as a divisive figure with whom they’d rather not continue to play.
In six years with the Bears, Cutler has gone through four offensive coordinators, two head coaches and a pair of general managers. Yet Cutler remains very much in play as the team’s potential long-term solution at the position, in part, because of the seven-year, $126.7 million extension the quarterback signed in January 2014. One more former staffer said the Bears could win with Cutler as long as the coaches handcuff him to the system.
“I don’t think there’s any question that there’s ability and talent there,” new Bears coach John Fox said recently of Cutler. “[But] there’s a lot more that goes into it, and we’re evaluating that as we speak.” But that’s precisely what the staff did when Mike Martz served as offensive coordinator during the 2010 and ’11 seasons, according to another former coach, and Cutler and Martz were often at odds. So this story was a big deal yesterday when I was in NYC. First of all, I’ve said from the second the Bears hired John Fox and Ryan Pace that the new regime should do whatever is the best for the team going forward, forget personal relationships or any of that bullshit. I think Cutler, given the contract he already has and is guaranteed, gives the Bears the best chance to win in 2015 when looking at the entire QB landscape, but I also think the Bears need to have an open competition and if they can draft a guy they should. I won’t sit here and say Cutler was good last year because he wasn’t, but I do still think there’s something there going forward. People who say the Bears should cut Cutler still have yet to give me who they want in his place. Give me 1 name. Show me a free agent that makes this team better. You can’t because there isn’t one.
Now with that said, I HATE stories like this. I can not stand anonymous stories talking about players. When people don’t put their name behind their comments they’ll say whatever the fuck they want. If they have a vendetta, if they hate the guy, if the guy slighted him once in the locker room whatever. There is zero context or accountability. It’s not like this is Watergate and the sources are anonymous because it’s highly classified and dangerous information. It’s an opinion on a person. A writer granting anonymity in this case is complete and utter bullshit. They let the sources be anonymous, the anonymous source says shit that they would never normally say and is most likely exaggerated because they don’t have to back up their words, then a salacious article is written. Fuck that. A Trestman staffer is probably bitter as all hell and wants to blame everyone but himself for how things went down, you give that guy anonymity and of course he’ll give you quotes like this. Write this piece with names and context and I’ll take it seriously but anonymously bashing a player is pointless in my mind. You can do that with almost anyone in any sport. Johnny Manziel got the same treatment a month ago. These stories are always cheap, shoddy reporting in my opinion.
