This entire NFL season has been driving me crazier and crazier as each week passes. Full disclosure here, I am a Chicago Bears fan. Now, my intent of this post IS NOT for it to become a "my team is better than your team" issue. Anyone that begins to make it such an issue is either a meathead or a moron or both.
All season long I have heard from national media, local media (both here in Minnesota and back in Chicago), and anyone who had a few seconds to give me their two cents that Jay Cutler was sure one big ass-hat. I have heard that he's a baby, a jerk, a whiner, and even by some over the top people that Cutler is possibly the anti-Christ. All of this came to a head with Rick Riley's complete rip-job on Cutler this last week over on ESPN.
Now, should Cutler be a little more friendly to the media? Sure. Should he try to be a better more emotional on-field leader to his teammates? All the successful ex-player/current-analysts seem to think so. But is he someone that deserves all this hate? Or are there other players out there that maybe people should focus their disdain for?
While everyone is busy dragging Cutler through the mud because God saw it fit to give Tom Brady Jay's share of that winning smile, gracious attitude, and flowing golden hair there are people prospering in the league without much, if any, hatred.
Jay Cutler is a grumpy person. Michael Vick trained dogs to kill one another and if they weren't good enough he shot them. Now Vick has gotten some heat this year from a few outliers but for the most part he is viewed as a great success story. Sure he had a great season and the things he did on the football field were spectacular, but how do the majority of people I interact with both online and in person hate Cutler more?
Jay Cutler fails to make eye contact with people talking to him most of the time. Ray Lewis was involved in, and most likely committed a COLD BLOODED DOUBLE MURDER by stabbing two people in 2000!!! Ten years later and Lewis is considered a model NFL citizen because he gives a good interview and signs autographs. If you call Cutler an asshole to his face he'll most likely smirk at you in an "I'm better than you" fashion but at least you're not in danger of BEING STABBED TO DEATH!!!
Ben Roethlisberger is a rapist.
Donte Stallworth got too liquored up, ignored the FREE program the NFL has for its players to get a safe sober ride home anywhere in the USA at any time of the night, then hit and KILLED a father of a 15 year old girl with his $200,000 Bently.
Stallworth and Vick have both since been awarded their team's Ed Block Courage Award by their teams. I'm assuming its because they had the "courage" to show their faces and pretend nothing was wrong.
I'm a firm believer that everyone deserves a second chance and if these guys have truly turned their life around from all the bullshit they have done then that's a great thing. My point here is that maybe everyone needs to get over the fact that Jay Cutler may not be the nice friendly guy you picture your All-American quarterback to be. However, lets not lose sight of the truly bad people in the NFL and when thinking about which players deserve your praise and which deserve your scorn, don't forget there are truly despicable men playing this sport and Jay Cutler is not one of them.
Oh, and this was just pointed out to me from ProFootballTalk.com
YES!
ReplyDeleteI was beginning to think I was the last person alive that remembered the whole Ray Lewis incident. The idiots in the booth on Sundays, most notably Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, and "Moose" Johnston really seem to have forgotten the whole incident. I CAN'T STAND that he's been anointed as some sort of elder-statesman or ambassador for the league.