Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler took a beating from his NFL colleagues after not returning to the NFL Championship game against the Packers.
What kind of beating?
The kind we haven’t seen before that included flooding Twitter with derogatory comments. Resounding condemnation followed Cutler off the field after he sprained the MCL in his left knee, couldn’t plant and throw and left the game in the hands of his backups.
The nastiness that followed can be classified as “hate”.
Did we hear this from Michael Vick’s NFL teammates and other players around the league after he killed dogs and funded a dog fighting ring where animals were abused?
What about when Donte Stallworth stayed out until dawn and killed a pedestrian while driving drunk?
What about when Ray Lewis was at the scene of a killing in Atlanta and copped a plea to obstructing a murder investigation?
The answer to all three questions is no and it’s left to those of us who haven’t piled on to ask why this phenomenon occurred.
Bravery in the face of physical injury and pain seems to be the rhetoric shared by the players and sports analysts who flooded Twitter, Facebook and sports-talk radio to claim they’d never act as Jay Cutler did. They questioned why Cutler did not continue to play, ignoring the fact he could have created a worse injury that needed a cart to remove him from the field or necessitate a six-month rehab. Took the player’s action of riding an exercise bike on the sideline as a slap in the face. There was even talk of him being unable to lead a team in Chicago after this.
Trent Dilfer said it best when he distinguished Cutler’s physical toughness from his inability to deal with “difficult circumstances.” Dilfer pointed out that when it got tough for Cutler in Denver, he fled the scene. The quarterback didn’t choose to talk it through with brash young head coach, Josh McDaniels. Dilfer equated Cutler’s poor execution in the red zone and on third down situations to the player not being able to push through barriers that seems to hold him back.
All that might be true but the level of venom loaded on Cutler says more about those professionals who broke the NFL code that seemed as strong as any that exists among police officers in a big city department.
Used with permission of the author.
Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles.
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