I’ve often said that starting quarterback Jay Cutler would get seriously hurt in a Chicago Bears game this season, but I didn’t think it would happen on a night in which he actually had fairly decent pass protection. As I’ve regularly pointed out, the Bears’ extremely terrible offensive line and Mike Martz‘s “interesting” schemes were bound to get him hurt at some point.
And tonight, although the protection was much better as the Bears beat the San Diego Chargers 31-20 to improve to 7-3, QB Jay Cutler broke the thumb in his throwing hand. He may need surgery to repair the injury.
(UPDATE: Multiple outlets report Cutler will be out 6-8 weeks!)
This is being talked about all over Twitter, as the story was originally broken by Vaughn McClure of the Chicago Tribune on his Twitter
Among his tweets on this topic @vxmcclure23 said:
Sources say the Bears are preparing to move forward without Cutler “for a while.”
This is a HUGE loss for the Bears as it has a tremendous impact on the NFC playoff picture. At 7-3 the Bears are currently in the thick of it. Perhaps Cutler will be back for the home stretch/and the NFL playoffs should the Bears qualify? That’s a best case scenario right now, as a break on any finger on your throwing hand is catastrophic for a signal caller.
Number two man Caleb Hanie, who has not thrown a pass this year, and did not throw a pass last season until the NFC Championship loss to the Green Bay Packers will likely get the next start. Nathan Enderle, the rookie from Idaho is the emergency QB. Enderle has not thrown a NFL pass, and Hanie, a 4th year guy from Colorado State is 8-14 for 66 yards, o TD, 1 INT in his pro career.
The Bears schedule is pretty easy down the stretch though, as the San Diego victory kicked off a stretch of four straight versus the very weak AFC West division.
Paul M. Banks is CEO of The Sports Bank.net, a Google News site generating millions of unique visitors. He’s also a regular contributor to Chicago Now, Walter Football, Yardbarker, and Fox Sports.
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