It is unfair to Jeff George to compare him to Jay Cutler

Now that Jay Cutler has again put himself in a position to be criticized, all of the comparisons of him to Jeff George are again coming to the surface.


This is patently unfair.  To Jeff George.


What I saw yesterday in the NFC Championship game was sickening.  Jay Cutler tapped out with a minor knee injury like he was playing in the Pre-Season or the Pro Bowl, instead of the biggest game of his career.  


He let Todd Collins take over HIS team because he got a boo boo.  


I'm not a doctor, but if his knee was stable enough to wander the sideline without ice or treatment - then he could have played.  Talent-wise, Jay Cutler on one leg is significantly better than a 85 year old Todd Collins.


After all, Jay has been playing on half a heart for years...  what's a little knee injury?


I wonder if in some future marriage he will tap out during a bedroom encounter and call up his neighbor to finish the job for him.


Say what you want about Jeff George, the man was tough.  The punishment he took behind the terrible Colts offensive line was just ridiculous.  It would only be fair to point out that they were not all that fired up to be blocking for him, but George still stayed in there and took it.


George never wavered on the opinion that it was *he* that should be leading his team.  Sometimes that was not true - but there is merit in that attitude.


I wrote earlier in the season that Cutler and Mike Martz were a couple doomed to fail.  That Cutler would never be able to execute Martz's offense.  


With the Bears resurgence in the second half of the season, it looked to *some* that I would have to eat my words.  What no one talked about was something that was obvious to myself as well as players who had played under Martz in St. Louis: the Bears were no longer running the "Mike Martz" offense.


Martz gave up on Cutler ever being able to execute a offense based on precise timing throws and rigid decision-making.  They basically "de-tuned" the offense and just let Cutler do what he has always done: sit back in the pocket and throw it to whoever had already gotten open.  Sometimes if you can pass block well enough, this can work.  But it is anything but Martz's system.


Collins came into that game trying to run the offense correctly - that is why he looked so bad.  The receivers and the rest of the offense had in the previous weeks gotten out of running the system as designed and could not just snap it back.  Unlike Cutler, Collins is a "system QB" and could have had great success in a Martz attack in his younger days.


So where does this leave Cutler and Martz?  Cutler will be back next year and will be the starter.  Martz will be there too unless he gets another job offer.  Martz only took this job out of desperation.  He needed to get back "in play" and had no other offers on the table.  


Working with Cutler will make him wish he sat this season out - he may never get another chance to be a head coach because of Jay Cutler: Coach Killer.