Why did Jay Cutler come off SO POORLY yesterday after his injury? Why is he receiving no sympathy despite his MCL tear?
Start with his stoic personality. Whether things are going well or poorly, he just doesn’t publicly display emotion very much. Some people are like that. Maybe he’s just shy, or maybe he’s a douche who just doesn’t care. We can’t say, but either way, to not display any emotion at all in the game which gets you an invite to the Super Bowl is a bit odd. Especially given the exciting nature of the game and the roller coaster of emotion that accompanies it.
You’d think if YOUR team came back from the dead with the unlikeliest of scenarios, a third-string QB leading them, YOU might be a bit excited when you’re just one play way from tying it and forcing overtime.
The Bears spin-masters also put all information out on a very strict “need to know” basis, and yesterday that backfired big time for Cutler. They described his status as “questionable” and told us he had a knee injury with a MRI to follow Monday. Since they won’t tell us a thing about the extent of his injury, and we all see him able to put weight on his leg (not on crutches, or in a cast or anything), of course we assume that Cutler’s injury isn’t that serious.
Today, we know it’s a MCL tear, but we still don’t know the severity of it.
There was blood on Cutler’s elbow and they refused to give us any info on that injury too. No wonder people think Cutler quit.
I’ve met a ton of local journos who refer to Bears PR as “Police Resistance,” and the policies get more restrictive by the year. The coordinators and Jay Cutler are only available for one hour a week; that’s it! So if you can’t get to Halas Hall for that one afternoon hour that Cutler is available on Wednesdays…..sorry!
Fans infer Cutler’s softness partially because he’s never allowed to say or do anything even remotely memorable to prove them wrong during these corporate sanitized speaking sessions referred to as “press conferences.” Not once has Cutler ever come close to being even remotely interesting because this limited access, message control -sometimes involving the Bears’ very own “reporter” tossing Cutler softball questions- won’t allow it. Since no one within the Bears organization told us anything about how severe or not severe Cutler’s injury is, we assumed the worst.
So if Cutler doesn’t appear warm and cuddly like the Easter Bunny, some of the blame falls on the politburo in Lake Forest micromanaging his media relations. Of course, some of it falls on him for not even trying to look like he really cares.
And that’s what makes Jay so off-putting. He plays QB in the NFL despite having type one diabetes, yet he’s the anti-Ron Santo. No one regards Cutler’s illness to be a sufficient crutch like they did with the late former Cub. Part of it is due to the advances in medical science across the past generation, part of it is because everyone thinks Cutler is soft today. That’s how awful Cutler’s persona is regarded. The guy who was sacked more than any other QB in the league, took it like a champion, and never complained is somehow deemed weak. That’s total b.s.
Let’s not ruin sports like America has ruined politics with this DUMB DUMB DUMB idea of “voting for the candidate you want to have a beer with.”