Jay Cutler Doesn’t Sound Ready To Be John Fox’s Hero

One merely has to read the words Cutler spoke during his first press conference back as the starter on Tuesday to understand his mindset. He doesn’t sound like a man ready to seize the reins and pull this team out of the fire. He sounds like a man resigned to his fate.

Jay is a competitor who still tries to win football games but he also doesn’t play his best when he doesn’t believe a word that comes out of his coaches’ mouth. Put it this way. In the first six games they were together, Cutler threw 12 touchdowns to just six interceptions under Trestman. Then he got hurt. By the time he got back healthy and knowing Trestman wanted to replace him, he threw 34 touchdowns to 22 interceptions over their remaining 18 games together.

That’s a 2-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio falling to a 1.88-to-1.22 ratio. Touchdowns go down and interceptions go up.

Now John Fox is thinking everything is just fine. Jay is back as the starter and all is right with the world. Thing is it doesn’t work that way with Cutler. He’s not the kind of guy who pulls a team from a 1-6 hole back to respectability. He’s a survivalist. He’ll fight for teammates, win a couple of games, but expecting him to go on a tear in order to save Fox’s own skin? That just doesn’t seem like his style.

Cutler is a professional to be sure and will play hard. At the same time, it wouldn’t be surprising if he just went through the motions the rest of this one. A last spiteful shot at the coaches who he thinks may have just sabotaged his last opportunity to start in the NFL. Petty? Maybe to an extent, but understandable nonetheless.

If he does play well down the stretch, it will be out of the simple selfish reason that he’s gone next year otherwise.