Bears moving forward with Jay Cutler
By CM Towle
The Chicago Bears are moving forward with Jay Cutler as their starting quarterback, says team GM Ryan Pace.
That takes care of that, Bears fans. Chicago GM Ryan Pace announced on Wednesday that the Bears are moving forward with Jay Cutler as their starting quarterback, according to the team’s official Twitter account. Not only that, but according to NFL insider Ian Rapoport, the Bears didn’t even try to trade Cutler.
"On Jay Cutler: I spoke with as many QB-needy teams as I could to see if Bears GM Ryan Pace tried to trade Cutler. None said he did. (via Ian Rapoport)"
If the first one wasn’t shocking, surely the second one has to be eye-opening. That means the Bears aren’t just choosing to go forward with Cutler because they literally have no other choice, nope, they’re making that conscious decision. That’s pretty amazing. Of course, it might be also one of those situations where trying is pointless because there just aren’t any suckers out there.
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On Tuesday, a report came out of ESPN saying that this was the likely decision. That the Bears had no interest in trading Cutler and were planning to move forward with him. That rumor is a reality on Wednesday as the Bears GM made it official.
A reminder, Cutler is 31 and he signed a seven-year contract with Chicago last offseason worth a pretty cool $126 million. What did he do with it? He passed for 3,812 yards, which is his most since 2008 when he was with the Broncos. He also added 28 touchdowns and an NFL high 18 interceptions.
Assuming he’s still on the roster Thursday, and there’s no reason not to assume that at this point, he has a $10 million guarantee for 2016 that will kick in at that point.
The good news is, at least one of Cutler’s teammates still believes he has a Rodgers or Manning type quarterback hiding in there somewhere. Bears guard Matt Slauson was asked if he was behind Cutler as the team’s starter this year.
“Absolutely,” he said, via the Chicago Sun-Times. “I have every confidence in him—his ability, his intelligence. The guy can be the best in the league. We just have to do a better job supporting him.”
Good thing they still have Brandon Marshall. Oh wait.
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