Jay Cutler Is a Diplomat
Quarterback eager to not offend his current wideouts
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Jay Cutler, acclimating nicely to Chicago politics.
When he's finished with football, maybe Jay Cutler can run for office.
Sure, he has a reputation of being surly, bratty, and a wee bit too high on himself. (Though imagine being a young, rich professional athlete. Like you wouldn't have a few character flaws.) Cutler doesn't exactly project a politician's glitzy, always-enthusiastic demeanor. Chicago's favorite adopted son, President Obama, could teach him a few things about staying calm.
But when it comes to straight-up diplomacy, Cutler is doing pretty well so far. To wit: ESPN radio reporter Jeff Dickerson asked Cutler about Brandon Marshall and Plaxico Burress, both talented yet troubled wide receivers. Cutler has played with Marshall his whole career, and both have succeeded greatly. And Cutler wouldn't take the bait.
"Wherever [Marshall] ends up, I'm sure he's going to be successful. Whether or not that's here, that's the guys upstairs, but as of right now I'm 100 percent happy with what we got," Cutler said. On Burress, Cutler said: "If it happens, it happens. I'm not going to speculate on whether we are going to go get him or not. The guys that we have right now I'm one-hundred percent confident in and comfortable with. We'll just have to wait down the road and see what happens with that."
It's like he's reading from a talking points memo: Don't say anything to get anyone riled up, don't indicate any interest in anyone and, above all, make sure to say how happy you are to be playing with the current crop of wide receivers. Check, check and check.
Of course that can't be entirely true; the Bears' current wideouts range from bad to average to might-be-good-someday, but none of them come close to Burress or Marshall in the talent department. But if Bears fans were hoping Cutler would pressure the organization for better targets, that doesn't seem likely. At least not in public.
Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.
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Posted Tuesday, Jul 14, 2009 - 4:10 PM CST
