These Moments Are What Killed The Jay Cutler Experiment In Chicago
By Erik Lambert
Jay Cutler will go down in Chicago Bears history for two things. He’ll leave as the all-time franchise passing leader, and also one of its biggest disappointments.
When the team gave away three high draft choices (two 1st rounders and a 3rd rounder) to the Denver Broncos, the assumption was the team was getting a Pro Bowler in his prime. He could finally be the one to succeed where so many others had failed (and failed spectacularly). As it turns out, looking back years later the fact is it just wasn’t meant to be. Cutler didn’t live up to the expectations. Debates rage about who is to blame for why that happened.
Some say Cutler is at fault for his reckless decision-making and bad attitude. Others claim the Bears didn’t do enough to build a solid team around him. In truth there is no one direct area of blame. There were a variety of factors involved that caused such a failure tracing back through all eight of his previous seasons.
Here is how the dominoes fell in chronological order.
2009: The Opener
Anybody knows the importance of making a good first impression. The Cutler euphoria was still in full swing on a crystal clear evening in Green Bay for a Bears vs. Packers showdown on opening night in 2009. Fans were anxious to see how Jay stepped into one of the most storied rivalries in NFL history. Maybe he could make the offense more explosive.
Instead what this game did was set the tone for everything that would follow. Nobody knew it at the time of course. The Packers’ exotic defense gave Jay fits all night. He completed less than half of his passes and topped it off with four backbreaking interceptions that kept Green Bay in the game long enough to win on a late comeback. It was the most interceptions Cutler ever had in a game in his career to that point, and it would only get worse.
It also established a maddening trend of painful performances he’d have against the Packers. This was the game that revealed just who Cutler was when he didn’t have absolute ideal circumstances surrounding him.