When former Vanderbilt Commodores star Jay Cutler went down in the NFC Championship Game with what was later reported to be a MCL sprain (AKA a tear), current and former NFL players lined up alongside certain upset Bears fans on Twitter to chastise Cutler for sitting out. His sideline behavior was suspect, as he didn't appear to be in any pain, but pro football players should know better than to need to see external proof of a serious injury.
I liked how two of the more prominent Cutler-bashers, Seahawks defenders Raheem Brock and Aaron Curry, were just knocked out of the playoffs by Cutler's team last week. Kind of lends credence to Brian Urlacher's theory, doesn't it? For their part, Bears fans have now moved on to burning the jersey of their injured quarterback, because Chicago is an excellent sports town that Atlanta should be more like.
During his time at Vandy, Cutler was one of the best and toughest SEC quarterbacks in recent memory. Spencer Hall remembers the shots Cutler took in that 2005 shootout in which the eternally undermanned Dores very nearly upset the No. 13 Florida Gators at the Swamp.
Falcons fans, remember last year's game against the Bears, when Cutler was sacked twice and battered all around the pocket but still threw for 300, ran for 34, and probably would've won the game if not for his fumbling running backs? He took his share of shots at the Georgia Dome in 2008 too, when his Denver Broncos became the first team to ever beat Mike Smith in Atlanta.
We're talking about a player who recently took nine sacks in a single half of football and has only missed one game in his pro career despite living as a diabetic. You don't have to like Jay Cutler (nobody does!) to acknowledge he's an especially tough football player.
I didn't see any Falcons players joining in on the Cutler free-for-all, though one former player did offer some relevant thoughts on the matter. Jamal Anderson, who's been through two serious knee injuries of his own, had Cutler's back from the moment the QB left the game.