A Word on Cutler

Settle down, Bears fans!

A lot of talk this week about whether Jay Cutler is all he’s cracked up to be. Things to remember:

Cutler’s a gunslinger quarterback. We knew that going in. Four interceptions probably reminds you of Bad Rex, and a quarterback who does that consistently obviously won’t last too long, but the buzz on Cutler has always been high reward for high risk. Despite having a bad game overall, you have to admit that Cutler made a handful of plays that Sid Luckman would have been proud of. You were excited to get him because he offers more than just game management – don’t chicken out now.

Two of Cutler’s interceptions were thrown to a spot with no Bear in the vicinity. That’s not a decision-making issue, that’s a mix-up between quarterback and receiver. And that’s something that can be improved.

The fourth and final interception was the slant to Johnny Knox. A slant is a timing pattern. You work on it enough in practice so that you can throw before the receiver makes his cut. Then, it’s up to the receiver to get the inside position on his defender. If you watched the final Bears snap carefully, you would have seen Johnny Knox not only fail to get the inside position, but actually get pushed over by Al Harris, leaving Harris a clear shot at the ball. Really, really not Cutler’s fault, which Cris Collinsworth pointed out, but apparently the local media failed to hear.

And finally, with a debut that bad, the Bears offense has nowhere to go but up!