Somebody get Stephen A. Smith a Valium. Perhaps another form of benzodiazepine, if you are so inclined. If you want to go old school and offer a nip of something, be my guest. After all, this man really needs to be chemically chilled in light of recent comments against Bears quarterback Jay Cutler.
I heard Smith make these comments on satellite radio this week, but this version from ESPN First Take is pretty close.
Let’s pull out a quote from the above rant which should pretty much solidify your position of dismissing that diatribe as another form of over-the-top sports shouting with authority — the hallmark of the dreaded “hot take.”
Smith: “To me, this is one of my most profound statements…”
Nothing like making your point by patting yourself on the back before you’ve even made it.
Smith: “…I have never seen Jay Cutler smile but one time, and that was when he signed his contract. That’s it!”
Well, then it must be the gospel! An out of town analyst takes a view of Cutler from the observation deck of the Willis Tower and makes proclamations! You can see how correct and solid his opinion is by the level of his voice!
He goes on to talk about numbers in the Cutler contract, which…deserve a little more time to discuss than a fifteen second rant. Standby. That’s later in this article.
However, Smith’s personal attacks on Jay Cutler bring up an interesting question: is our favorite pro from Santa Claus, Indiana the Grinch that stole Chicago football? Or do we have to question why the fan base has such vitriol for a man who simply signed a contract that was offered to him?
The deal Jay Cutler signed last offseason made him the highest paid player in the NFL this season. It also makes him difficult to get rid of, should that be the Chicago Bears plan this offseason. Cutting “Cutty” costs the Bears $15.9 million for the 2015 NFL season (and possibly an additional $10 million if they don’t do it before March). More importantly, cutting him from the roster also puts a cap hit on that essentially ties up about 15% of next year’s available salary space towards one player that is no longer on your roster. Ouch.
Here’s a great breakdown on that last paragraph.
The other option is to trade Cutler, which reduces next year’s cap hit. But who is going to swallow that very large salary pill without a little sugar to help the medicine go down? ESPN Adam Scheffer reports the Bears may be the first team ever to trade a player and a high draft pick in exchange for a lower draft pick.
If you keep Cutler, what are you left with? He currently leads the league in interceptions. He will eclipse his best career quarterback rating this season, but 89.5 this season, nor a career average of 85.3 does not put you among the elite. And if you look at splits from this year, Jay Cutler appears to do more with less throwing in the Bears’ victories this season.
Regardless of whether Jay is cut, traded, or kept, I’m wondering what fault he has for being in this situation? After all, he didn’t lay siege to Halas Hall and force them to offer him that contract. His past was well-known, the Bears had plenty of time to give him the “eye test.” So, they gave a contract in line with the metrics of other similar quarterbacks and they lost based on the actual real-world execution.
If anything, blame the Bears front office for stacking the contract the way they did. It is setting up to cripple the organization for the next one, maybe two seasons. Don’t blame Jay for doing what most any of us would do if our employers offered: we’d take the money, too.