When Tony Romo made his retirement announcement back on April 6th, along with the revelation that he was to immediately transition into broadcasting, we knew this preluded the future for Jay Cutler. Romo just didn’t fit in with the Houston Texans, and he simply couldn’t find the right place to continue his NFL playing career.
That day, we then went ahead and predicted that Jay Cutler would soon go down the same exact road as Tony Romo. Today we were proven right, as FOX Sports sent out a press release announcing the deal this morning.
The press release states:
Former NFL Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler becomes a rookie once again, this time in the broadcast booth. Cutler joins FOX Sports as game analyst for the 2017 NFL season, sitting alongside play-by-announcer Kevin Burkhardt, analyst Charles Davis and sideline reporter Pam Oliver. The announcement was made today by John Entz, President of Production & Executive Producer, FOX Sports.
There’s also a statement attributed to Jay Cutler attached too. We hesitate to ever write “person A said XYZ…….” with official statements because 99% of the time these are just crafted by PR flaks. You have to be especially careful with FOX Sports releases given how they attributed a statement to Pam Oliver which expressed a sentiment that was polar opposite to what she really felt and then said in a magazine interview.
Here’s an excerpt, but you can read the full Jay Cutler statement at this link. (It does certainly sound like he wrote it himself. The statement comes off as very genuine and heart felt)
I don’t know if retirement is the right word; I don’t feel that anyone ever really retires from the NFL. You are either forced to leave, or you lose the desire to do what’s required to keep going. I’m in between those situations at this point in my life. Words can’t express how grateful I am to everyone who helped me along my journey….
…I recently read a quote that struck a chord with me at the time. It was attributed to Henry Rollins (but with the internet these days, you can never be too sure who really said it). “I did that, I gave everything I had to give to that. Now, if I returned to that it would be repetition – it might be fun repetition, but it wouldn’t be meaningful repetition.”
So how will Cutler do in the booth? Well, let’s give him a chance. We’ve seen this so many times in sports that it’s truly par for the course- these guys are boring, vanilla interviews as players, but then morph into colorful interesting figures as pundits.
It makes sense as they spend their entire playing careers instructed by high powered Media Relations professionals, PR specialists, brand managers and corporate suits to be as blah as possible every time they speak to the public. They are told to only make headlines for their performances on the field, but never for what they say.
Then in retirement, they have to let their true personalities, which they have been submerging for so long, to now emerge. Now comes the time to attract publicity for what they have to say. Romo hasn’t seemingly made the transition yet, as he talked a lot but said next to nothing on his CBS Sports media conference call.
FOX is not hosting a media call for Jay Cutler, so we can’t get a gauge from that. One of Cutler’s most famous teammates, Brian Urlacher, hasn’t made the smoothest transition into television punditry in the few opportunities that he’s had already. Urlacher resigned from one of his gigs, so maybe that’s just not what he wants to do.
With Cutler, social media seems to be overwhelmingly against this idea, but then again, that’s Twitter for you. Those who approve are called the silent majority for a reason. It’s the disgruntled and angry who make their voices heard the loudest.
Here’s a smattering of Twitter users who oppose the appointment of Jay Cutler to their football broadcasts on FOX.
We also threw in a couple Tweets from those who support this move to be “fair and balanced.” This is FOX that we’re talking about after all.
Again, let’s just give this guy a chance. He is sarcastic, opinionated and intelligent in some ways (not on the issue of medical science, given that he and his wife hold the logically inexplicable and morally indefensible positions of being an anti-vaxxer) but he is very football smart.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! #BanJayCutlerFromFootball @paulmbanks https://t.co/dqVVW19g7Z
— Danny Aller (@DannyAller) May 5, 2017
"Jay, did it look like the receiver had control of the…"
"DOOOON'T CAAAARRRE!"https://t.co/l6p9M4Bdun— The Frustrated Fan (@Frustrated_Fan) May 4, 2017
"So Jay, how would you assess that first half of action?"
"doooooooooooooon't caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaare" https://t.co/uupTAcPqDJ
— Paul M. Banks (@PaulMBanks) May 4, 2017
When all the sports network sees Jay Cutler's broadcasting job resume…https://t.co/TzEKvQxit4
— Confuse-ius. (@A_A_Ron_Rodgers) May 4, 2017
Jay Cutler will be bringing his passion and energy to Fox as a commentator this season pic.twitter.com/XdkTnUPP0x
— NFL Retweet (@NFLRT) May 5, 2017
So, Jay Cutler wants to be a broadcaster. I can't wait until he throws it back to the studio and it's intercepted by another network.
— BigHeadSports (@BigHeadSports) May 4, 2017
I hope Jay Cutler is really good in the broadcast booth just to piss you off.
— B-Mad (@brianm731) May 5, 2017
Jay Cutler is awesome and always has been. It is the Chicago media and fans that ruined him.
— ryan (@rschultzy20) May 5, 2017
No matter what side of the fence you fall on with Jay Cutler you’ll be interested in how this all turns out. Say what you want about the man, but he certainly inspires strong feelings in people.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net and TheBank.News, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com, currently contributes to WGN CLTV and KOZN.
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