Cutler Quit when He Should Have Played

To anyone offering excuses on Jay Cutler's behalf, stop it.

To anyone thinking for one second that I'm backing away from what I wrote on Yahoo! Sports:

Fuggeddaboutit.

Was he injured? Was he hurt?

First off, I don't know. Second, I don't care.

I know what I saw. I saw the same thing that everyone in America saw. I saw Cutler walk into the locker room before the half. I saw him walk out. I saw him walk around. I saw him standing. I saw him riding a bike. I didn't see any medical staff or trainers working furiously on whatever is going on with his knee. I did not see any replays of how he got injured, nor were there any shots of him hobbling from the field (mainly because he didn't hobble from the field, but I digress...). He looked like he should have played.

Don't take my word for it. Go to NFL.com, and check out their list of the top ten gutsiest performances.

You'll find guys like Donovan McNabb, playing on a broken ankle. A broken ankle. For the record, I've broken an ankle, and I've gone to work the very next day. The difference, of course, is that my day job doesn't require me to rely upon my ankle for mobility as I avoid men twice my size who are trying to kill me. Think about trying to walk without crutches on a broken ankle. Now think about trying to run. Now think about trying to make a sharp cut to avoid being crushed. Think about planting on that ankle to throw a pass. That was McNabb's day.

For those of you trying to say "Oh, leave him alone, he has a torn something-or-other in his knee," I'm now holding the world's smallest violin, and I'm playing just for the ligaments, because Philip Rivers played an AFC Championship game with a torn anterior cruciate ligament...it was only a chance for his team to go to the Super Bowl, after all. Let's not forget that torn ACL's used to end careers before sports medicine improved. So, ah, no, I have no intention of backing off, not when I can look at a contemporary of Cutler's for an example.

Emmitt Smith played with a bruised sternum and a separated shoulder against the New York Giants in 1993. At stake: the number 1 seed in the NFL, and, ultimately, a second Super Bowl trip for his Cowboys. All he did was manage over 200 yards of offense against a defense that knew he was in the kind of pain that can only be described as epic. No one would have called his heart into question had he chosen to sit out. No one. But he took it upon himself to be there for his guys, because the chance for real greatness was right there...and he took it.

Jack Youngblood carried his team through the playoffs and into the Super Bowl on a broken leg...because the Super Bowl was at stake. Super Bowls are not guaranteed to anyone, thus the opportunity to reach one should never be squandered.

By way of a way-out example that proves my point, consider the situation in Tim Burton's delightful "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." The protagonist, Charlie Bucket, is appallingly poor, yet he managed to find one of Willie Wonka's Golden Tickets. His first thought was for the welfare of his family, saying that he could sell the ticket and get some money for them. One of his grandfathers, however, would hear nothing of the sort: " There's plenty of money out there. They print more every day. But this ticket, there's only five of them in the whole world, and that's all there's ever going to be. Only a dummy would give this up for something as common as money. Are you a dummy? " His point was simple: this is a rare thing, something that may never happen again, so, whatever you do, don't miss it.

The same is true in the NFL. There are 32 teams, and, ultimately, 31 will have failed in their mission to win the championship. That some teams have managed to win more than one is nearly beyond belief, considering the difficulty involved. One injury to the wrong guy at the wrong time can de-rail an entire season. That some teams have never been to the Super Bowl is equally puzzling, as blind luck should favored one of the traditional have-nots by now

But there's no rhyme or reason to it. Nothing can explain how Jim McMahon went to more Super Bowls (two) than did Dan Marino (one), and nothing can explain how Barry Sanders never played in one. Nothing explains how Houston Oiler Earl Campbell never got there, but Tennessee Titan Eddie George did. Nothing could possibly explain Charles Haley's six (!!) rings or Jim Kelly's zero.

This is what irks me and a lot of Bear fans in Chicago and around the nation today. We, as fans, understood the moment better than the guy actually playing did. We know the capricious nature of fate, how our NFC title run this season could lead to a Super Bowl championship, the way the '84 season portended '85's greatness, or how we could challenge the Detroit Lions for the worst regular season record of all time. We know that chances like these don't come along all the time, not in a league with guys like Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Michael Vick, and Aaron Rodgers all seeking their first championship ring, to say nothing of guys like Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, Drew Brees, and Ben Roethlisberger, who have eight championships between them collectively. The likelihood of the Bears never getting this close to a Super Bowl again during Cutler's tenure in Chicago is much, much greater than the likelihood of a Joe Montana-esque run to multiple championships, even greater than the chance of winning just one.

He was walking. He should have played. End of story.

Sources:

NFL.com

IMDB.com