Here's my little FireJoeMorgan takedown of the blubbering shit that Jason Whitlock wrote about Jay Cutler's injury-gate. Before we start, I have always liked Cutler. The narrative entering the game on Sunday was that Aaron Rodgers is the likable sympathetic figure who had to sit behind Brett Favre for years (Steve Young had to sit behind Joe Montana, and I'm pretty sure no one considers him a sympathetic figure), and Jay Cutler was a pompous ass. I'm not sure where Cutler got his reputation, although it was probably due to his on-and-off field spat with the pompous ass known as Philip Rivers. To me, this odd, unfounded excoriation of Cutler is what makes Jay Cutler the real sympathetic figure, and more so after the crazy blasting he was given for taking himself out of a game he got injured in. Anyway, let's get to the point.
Jason Whitlock is an idiot. He writes inflammatory, controversial garbage to brew up debate, but he really believes the stuff he writes. He also tries to drum up race in sports all the time, including in many theatres where it is not needed nor relevant. Let's get to my takedown of his takedown of Jay Cutler.
DID JAY CUTLER QUIT?
I don't know Jason, but please do tell? I would love to know your thoughts, considering that you have not asked him, and will base all of this on the dependency of FOX's camera crew.
Maybe now the LeBron James sycophants will quit playing the race card.
Very few LeBron James sycophants play the race card. In fact, other than you, very few people bring up the race card with LeBron. The reason LeBron is a hated vilified figure has absolutely nothing to do with race.
Maybe now they’ll accept the visceral, instantaneous and emotional rejection of their King in the aftermath of The Decision was primarily a confluence of factors that had little to do with race.
It is pretty widely accepted that it LeBron's hate has nothing to do with race.... and neither is Jay Cutler's situation. This is a horrible intro, even if a 4th grader wrote it.
Social media, our cultural, unhealthy obsession with sports and the thin line between our love and hate for spoiled, clueless millionaire athletes led to the widespread loathing of LeBron.
The same thing happened to Jay Cutler on Sunday.
Except you also will join in on the same loathing that you despise people for feeling towards LeBron? Oh., even for you Whitlock, this is shit.
In the biggest game of his career, shortly after playing 30 minutes of awful football, Cutler laid down on the Bears and the city of Chicago. Hiding behind a knee injury, he tapped out in much the same way LeBron James tapped out with an elbow injury against the Celtics during last year’s playoffs.
LeBron claimed an elbow injury for one game, and even then, they won a game after the injury news came out. Plus, LeBron never asked out, never had a real injury.
I’m sorry. I don’t need an MRI to confirm King Cutler quit.
That's because Jason Whitlock has multiple Quit-Scans. They're like CatScans, only halfway through, they give up and finish the x-ray with crayon.
FOX cameras provided all the evidence I need.
Fox. Which happens to own the website you are writing for, and also is subjectively picking what shots of the sideline to show the audience, and is probably not showing Jay Cutler in a PIP box on the screen all the time.
Cutler suffered a knee injury, not a head injury. The only reason Cutler spent the second half of the NFC Championship bundled up on the Chicago sideline looking like an aloof, uninvolved punter was because he mentally checked out.
Wouldn't "mentally check[ing] out" be kind of like a head injury? Plus, he had a knee injury, that physically took him out. I'm not sure why this is so complicated.
You do remember King James staring off into space as Mike Brown tried to coach the Cavs late in the Celtics series?
You mean when a healthy King James did not listen to his coach? Yeah, that is totally similar to Jay Cutler LISTENING to his coach and trainers and sitting out.
To their credit -- and perhaps their cowardice -- Cavaliers fans didn’t turn on their King until he hosted a rub-their-noses-in-it TV special celebrating his betrayal of his home-state team.
Imagine the reaction in Chicago if Cutler makes the slightest public-relations slip between now and when Bears’ doctors reveal Cutler may never walk again. You think LeBron is despised? Let the wrong syllable come out of Cutler’s mouth and President Obama won’t be able to rehabilitate Cutler’s reputation.
When his argument is going to hell, he does like every good Democrat, and just bring up Obama's name. That said, the reaction in Chicago has already been ridiculous before the doctors' said anything. Also, the doctors revealed that Cutler had a serious knee injury.
Despite all their strong words defending Cutler, I bet you couldn’t pay Brian Urlacher and Lovie Smith to start Cutler’s car for the next month. Cutler is the new Steve Bartman, the interfering Cubs fan.
I'm pretty sure Jay Cutler, even if he was as strong and tough and wonderful as that pillar of loyalty Ben Roethlisberger, would not ask anyone to start his car. I'm not sure why anyone would ask someone else to start their car. That said, I bet I could pay Brian Urlacher to punch Jason Whitlock in his gelatinous fat. Also, it isn't exactly a good argument when you bring up a man who's life was ruined because fans take sports too seriously.
For the record, Cutler is white and so are the overwhelming majority of Bears fans.
Amazingly irrelevant. They are also mainly from Chicago, and eat deep dish pizza, and have watched Michael Jordan literally quit on their Bulls in 1993.
Within minutes of the conclusion of Green Bay’s 21-14 victory, a picture of Chicago fans burning a Cutler jersey showed up on my Twitter feed. Fans started pointing out that Tom Brady played all season needing surgery on his foot, Willis Reed limped through Game 7 of the NBA Finals with a torn muscle in his thigh, Ronnie Lott cut off a piece of his finger to play, etc.
Willis Reed does not play a sport where 11 big, strong men are trying to hit him hard. Also, I'm pretty sure that you can play with a part of your finger missing. That is not a comparable injury. And finally, it is good that you bring up Tom Brady. In the 2001 AFC Championship, Tom Brady did leave the game, with a knee injury. I'm pretty sure Ty Law and Tedy Bruschi and Bill Belichick did start his car during the next month.
Fans were irate.
Worse was the reaction of Cutler’s NFL peers. Current and former players trashed Cutler on Twitter and on TV.
Because the opinion of a select few of his peers (not all peers, like his former enemy Philip Rivers who defended him) matters so much? I guess you think that Maurice Jones-Drew and Darnell Dockett personally pay Cutler his signing bonus??
The backlash against Cutler overshadowed the Packers’ victory and drove discussion all Monday.
I am pretty sure it did not overshadow the Packers' victory. And the only reason it might are because of idiots like you trying to create a controversy instead of accept the logical answer that Cutler got hurt.
Football is the ultimate gladiator sport. It’s a PED sport. Right or wrong, the culture dictates that you inject yourself with whatever is necessary to play. You gut it out on a bad knee, hope that you do no further damage and deal with the consequences the next day and for the rest of your life.
Yes, that is why Aaron Rodgers missed a game, when his team was not even assured of a playoff spot, with a concussion. That is why Markuice Pouncey left the game later the same day as Jay Cutler. That is why Anquan Boldin, who Whitlock adores, missed a playoff game in each of the previous postseason. No one ever misses games. EVER.
My right knee hurts as I’m writing this. I played my last season at Ball State with a torn ACL. My 160-pound roommate played most of the season with a serious neck injury. Yeah, we were naive, stupid and probably exploited.
So, how does this make Jay Cutler playing with a Grade II sprain (3-4 week recovery time) a good idea. The fact that you are still feeling affects of a ACL injury is exactly why it is not smart for injured guys to play. Also, it means you should lose some weight. That knee can't support everything forever. By the way, if that is true, your roommate was an idiot, and you most certainly were/are naive and stupid.
I’d do it again. And knowing what I know now, I’d probably come back and play my fifth year. If they gave me a $50 million contract and Todd Collins was my backup, you’d have to fight me to get me off the field in the NFC Championship.
The fact that his backup is Todd Collins shouldn't matter. Phil Rivers, before he, gasp, played the AFC Championship on a torn ACL, he asked out of a playoff game and left it in the hands of Billy Volek.
Deion Sanders roasted Cutler on the NFL Network. Michael Irvin sang in Deion’s choir.
Yeah, because the opinions of a cornerback who notoriously shied away from any contact, and a wide receiver who snorted more coke than Rick James really should be taken seriously.
Cutler’s defenders miss the point. No one is really questioning Cutler’s toughness. We know he took a beating this season behind a leaky offensive line.
No. You are questioning his toughness. Questioning his inability to play with a partially torn/sprained (they mean the same thing in this case) MCL is exactly questioning his toughness.
We’re questioning Cutler’s love of the game. A quarterback, a leader, has to love the game.
I think the fact that he has given his life to this game, playing on teams that were not that good for years, getting the shit sacked out of him and getting back up, and only missing one game in his career due to injury, means that he loves the game.
On Sunday, Cutler carried himself like someone who plays football primarily because he was born with the gift and the job pays well. It turned us off. It upset us.
It upset you. It upset a lot of people that he wasn't "tough" enough. You're the only one who has his panties in his bunch about his will to play football. Plus, why would he suddenly find this lack of will? Wouldn't that have happened when he was being mercillesly beaten by the Giants, getting sacked every time he dropped back? No? He would wait until the NFC Championship, in a game he had only been sacked twice in?
No matter your football resume -- high school hero, college scrub, retired Super Bowl champion -- if you love the game, you would’ve given anything to be in Cutler’s shoes on Sunday. And you believe you would’ve handled the situation differently.
No, I wouldn't. Just like Phil Rivers (2007 AFC Divisional), and Tom Brady (2001 AFC Title), and Colt McCoy (2009 National Championship), and Rich Gannon (2000 AFC Title), and Donovan McNabb (2003 NFC Title), and Chris Johnson (2008 AFC Divisional), Jay Cutler listened to his team doctors, and when told he couldn't continue playing, he stopped playing.
It’s that exact same belief -- not race -- that drove you to loathe LeBron.
I loathe LeBron because he chose the easy way out. He abondoned the team that loved him, the city that loved him to play second-fiddle in another city. Cutler did not do that at all. If he had a Grade II sprain, he didn't even have a choice to make.
Article taken from FOXSports.com
