Bears Have Enough Blame To Go Around Besides Cutler

By Tim Bearden in News on Sep 18, 2012 3:45PM

Let’s face it; the name “Jay” in Chicago was synonymous with “Dick.” long before Jay Cutler came to town. Former Sun-Times sports columnist Jay Mariotti brought his usual self to ChicagoSide Sports Monday, writing to incite the emotions of Bears still irate at Cutler for his postgame performance last week.

Mariotti dusted off his soapbox and wrote of the Bears:

"[T]he city’s biggest ongoing tragicomedy is the Bears, who have won one championship in 46 years of Super Bowls, allegedly appeared in one other Super Bowl a few years back—I seem to remember a rainstorm, Bad Rex Grossman and not much else—and have watched even the White Sox and Blackhawks end decades-long futility streaks with titles."

It’s no secret Chicago criticizes its sports teams a little more than most and we can turn on them at the drop of a hat. One day you’re a hero, the next you’re a punch-line: that’s the nature of being an athlete and a fan in the Windy City. Cutler is this week’s whipping boy the villagers are gathering pitchforks and torches against in outcry to his treatment of rookie J’Marcus Webb after being sacked for the umpteenth time in one game.

If it’s any consolation to Cutler, I’d be pissed, too.

But Mariotti makes a good point. It’s the way you get pissed that makes a difference—a sentiment that was also expressed by fellow Chicagoisto Rob Winn.

We can all agree that Thursday night's debacle against the Packers was a bad game. Neither Cutler, the offense nor the coaching staff did anything right. It happens. Cutler screamed at an offensive lineman on the field. That shouldn’t have happened, but it sometimes does to all athletes when things aren’t going right. They let the most recent person who didn’t do their job have it. By all means, let loose on a player if he deserves it. Any coach or player worth his weight in salt will tell you that. Webb did deserve to get berated. So does Cutler. But so do the critics.

Cutler reacted—albeit poorly, but at least he reacted and that’s a step up from the recent string of disappointments that have marched through Soldier Field to stand under center. Cutler is to blame, too. He makes bad decisions under pressure, which is a healthy majority of snaps, but you can’t learn how to make good decisions without having the breathing room to figure it out. In a case of the blame game, the whole offense is a bunch of losers this week as a collective. Winn and Mariotti talk about “leadership” and what it means to be a leader of a team, which is something Cutler does lack in all honesty. Everyone, however, is shifting blame and pointing fingers away from the real problem—top-level leadership.

Staff, fans and players expected a rookie tackle to block a veteran linebacker in Clay Matthews who was blowing past him at will. That’s just unrealistic in a first meeting. Being a veteran Cutler should have acknowledged that and gotten upset, but in a way that made Webb just as embarrassed and eager to plant Matthews in he turf, as opposed to the smirk across Webb’s face at Chicago’s latest jackass and a passive aggressive Facebook status aimed at the temper tantrum. A leader teaches his players how to work around issues to overcome them, not allow them to dissolve morale even further. The trouble is Cutler has no other leaders to follow in Chicago.

Coming to the Bears should have been the learning experience Cutler needed to become a leader and a captain. The team had no measurable hope for a decent offense until he was traded, which should have encouraged the coaching staff to build him as the offense’s new leader. Instead he was just assigned the letter, patted him on the butt and told “go to work.”

It’s not all about Cutler lacking leadership. It’s the leadership he lacks around him. Instead of us yelling at Cutler it should be Lovie Smith making him do wind sprints or sidelining him for his fits and Emery putting him on the trading block for a level-headed QB or at least scouting the quarterback of the future. They should be having these talks with Cutler. They should be telling him that’s no way to treat a teammate and supplying consequences for his actions. Not us. When you have a child who isn’t acting appropriately, look at the parent(s) not the child. And as Mariotti and Winn point out, Cutler does indeed act like a misbehaved child.

But instead the “parents” sidestep the media landmines and duck in Cutler’s presence. That’s a coward, not a leader.