Today’s Wisch List column from the Kankakee Daily Journal …
Be like Mike? Let’s Cut(ler) the hype
The WISCH LIST
Sept. 19, 2009
When I was in high school, I owned a Nike T-shirt emblazoned with an image of Michael Jordan frozen in mid-jumper alongside the message: “He doesn’t live on Earth. He just shows up for practice and game days.”
Over the top?
Like one of MJ’s dunks.
But during the 1990s, that’s how it was with Jordan. The man was hype personified. Yet it never seemed over the top. Not really.
Reason being was that every challenge thrown Jordan’s way, he met. Every opponent, he overcame. And every barb tossed, he returned (including those saved for last week’s, ahem, highly spirited Hall of Fame induction speech).
On the basketball court, Michael Jordan could do anything, it seemed. Chicago loved his hype. I loved his hype. And with the bling of six NBA championship rings on his fingers, I understood every bit of where it came from.
This summer, however, I haven’t had that same understanding – not at all – regarding the adulation that’s been tossed at the feet of Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler like so many rose petals.
Before he had even risen to any occasion at all.
For example, last week, prior to the Bears’ regular season opener at Green Bay, Chicago Tribune columnist David Haugh shared a story borne of the Cutlermania that descended upon Bourbonnais earlier this summer.
“Five minutes before the Bears’ first practice of training camp on the campus of Olivet Nazarene,” Haugh wrote, “a member of Jerry Angelo’s staff knocked on the door of the general manager’s makeshift office.
“ ‘It’s time to go see our greatest work ever,’ he excitedly told Angelo.”
That Bears staff member was referring, of course, to Cutler, “who is to Angelo,” Haugh wrote, “what the Sistine Chapel is to Michelangelo.
“His greatest work ever.”
Well, I’m sorry, but Jay Cutler isn’t the Sistine Chapel. Nor is he Michael Jordan in shoulder pads. Certainly not yet, at least. And no matter how much Chicago has seemed to want him to be.
Now, this isn’t to say that Cutler isn’t a talented quarterback (he is) or that trading for him wasn’t a good move (it was). Nor is it to say that the guy can’t lead the Bears to Super Bowl glory (he could).
But how about we ditch the audacity of hype surrounding Cutler and let him, you know, actually do that first?
Or, for that matter, do anything.
With the way the Legend of Jay Cutler has been spun around these parts since springtime, though, you would have thought the guy already had hoisted a Lombardi Trophy – or three – in Grant Park.
Heck, even sportswriters in Wisconsin were buying in.
“Cutler is definitely the one,” Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Tom Silverstein gushed last weekend. “[The Bears] thought so much of him that on April 3 they sent [quarterback Kyle] Orton, two first-round picks (in ‘09 and ’10) and a third-round pick to Denver for Cutler and a fifth-round selection …
“The way fans in the Windy City see it, Cutler’s arrival marks the end of a cycle of mediocrity at quarterback that has plagued this organization for two decades. When he drops back to pass for the first time Sunday, he will carry the tonnage of many broken dreams on his shoulders.”
It turned out instead that Cutler broke a few new ones as he reduced his myth to mere reality with a 43.2 passer rating, four interceptions and a heartbreaking 21-15 loss to the hated Packers.
Not unlike Rex Grossman before him, Cutler’s biggest strength might be that he thinks he can complete every pass. And his biggest weakness might be that he thinks he can complete every pass.
On Sunday, the swift transformation from a pre-game King Cutler to an in-game Rex Cutler prompted a post-game commenter to vent on a Chicago Sun-Times blog:
“Well, this is what happens when people run out and place a person on a THRONE before they do anything,” the fan wrote. “Now, I guess a lot of people have gotten their feelings hurt … Oh, well.
“Chicago should’ve reserved its opinion on him like Green Bay did with [quarterback Aaron] Rodgers and then formed an opinion. BUT, oh no, too many of you fell IN LOVE right from the start and didn’t step back to look at the big picture.”
I hardly expect that the big picture of Cutler will show that he’s Rex Grossman, Cade McNown or the cast of other QB clowns that Chicago has suffered through for so long.
But before we decide what Jay Cutler is, let’s let him first show us.
Last weekend, a blog named “Jay Cutler Superstar” at the Tribune-owned site ChicagoNow.com pointed out how Cutler is the 23rd Bears quarterback since Jim McMahon and that “Michael Jordan was 23. Is this fate or what?”
That was written tongue in cheek.
Which, in regards to Cutler, is where we should keep ours for the time being.
Leave the tongue-wagging to Michael.
“… the audacity of hype…” ;>)