RADIO
The 2017 NFL season is over and the 2018 NFL Draft isn't here yet, which means everyone across the fantasy football realm--the redrafters and the dynasty-ers--has a little time to relax and look back, to reminisce about your successes and failures over the past year. It's also a chance to look back at the careers of some players who might not have a fantasy future ahead of them. Today's player is quarterback Jay Cutler - a talented passer who will likely be remembered for his nonchalant attitude and a series of memes in which a cigarette has been Photoshopped into his mouth.
That is the look of a man who could have been a great NFL quarterback in some other universe but just...wasn't in this one. A man who briefly retired and then came back to join the Miami Dolphins for reasons that still very, very unclear. Barring another weird, unforeseen issue (I can see my Bears friends screaming right now after Trubisky and Glennon go down with off-season injuries and the team brings Cutler back in on a one year deal), Cutler is done as an NFL quarterback. So, it's time to remember the fantasy football career of the great (maybe?) Jay Cutler.
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In Remembrance: Smokin' Jay
Before we get into what Cutler did during his actual, on-field career, let's talk about how Jay Cutler made a mark on fantasy football with his memorable appearance on the FX series The League. Jenny, a member of a fantasy football league on the show, ends up at the same baby class as Cutler's wife, Kristin Cavallari, the former star of the reality television series Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County. Jenny does what anyone would do when confronted with a chance to be near the Cutler baby--she steals Cavallari's breast milk. In a later episode, Cutler himself appears when Jenny and her husband, Kevin, run into him and Cavallari at a preschool. They eventually get invited to a party at Jay's house, but Kevin ruins the friendship when he grabs what he thinks is bathroom spray and accidentally grabs spray paint, covering the bathroom in red paint. Jay Cutler did a good job acting in that episode.
Cutler also sometimes did a good job as an NFL quarterback, though some deep dives into his career stats produced some numbers that were...lower than I expected. Did you know that Jay Cutler finished as a top ten fantasy quarterback just ONE time? He was the QB4 in 2008, back when he played for the Denver Broncos and head coach Mike Shanahan. When Shanny was fired after the season, the team brought in Josh McDaniels, who immediately thought it would be a good idea to try trading Cutler for Matt Cassel. The deal fell through, but it angered Cutler enough that he stopped talking to McDaniels and eventually was traded to Chicago in a deal that brought Kyle Orton to Denver. In Chicago, Cutler only finished as a top fifteen fantasy quarterback one time. That number is skewed a little because Cutler only played a full 16-game schedule three times, but it's still disheartening for anyone (like me) who remembered Cutler with any fondness.
If this really is the end of Jay Cutler (and it really, really should be), he'll finish his career with a completion percentage of 62 percent, 227 career touchdown passes, and 160 interceptions. He was the face of a continuously under-performing early-2010s Chicago Bears squad, a guy who all Bears fans both loved and hated, though they eventually seemed to settle more on the hated side. Cutler had his bad moments, including two seasons in which he led the NFL in interceptions. He didn't look like--or act like--he cared at times.
In fact, looking at the numbers, it's possible we always overvalued Cutler as a fantasy player BECAUSE we thought that underneath the whatever exterior lied a good quarterback. Per Pro Football Reference's algorithm that finds players with similar careers, Cutler ranks as nearly equivalent to the following list of players: Ken O'Brien, Jon Kitna, Don Meredith, Jake Plummer, and Brad Johnson. We're likely not going to remember Cutler well historically. His lack of success can be blamed partially on injuries, but it can't be blamed on a lack of a strong supporting cast as the Bears had wide receivers Brandon Marshall and Alshon Jeffery during Cutler's time in Chicago.
So, we say goodbye to Jay Cutler, a quarterback who lived on fantasy rosters for a decade despite being just a slightly above-average played, buoyed by a strong, Pro Bowl season with Denver in 2008. Maybe the problem was Chicago. Maybe if Josh McDaniels hadn't had issues with the personnel in Denver, the Broncos would have kept Cutler and built a team around him. Maybe we'd remember Cutler as a guy who was consistently a top five or ten fantasy quarterback. Maybe Cutler would have been what Matt Schaub was for the Texans for years--a dependable option who threw for a lot of yards and put up consistently good numbers. But instead, we'll remember Cutler more for his grumpiness and his lack of postseason success--he only appeared in the playoffs during one season--than for much else. Goodbye, Jay. We'll see you in a broadcasting booth, where you'll be doing a poor imitation of Tony Romo.
As a bonus, here's a quote by my buddy Joel, a long time Bears fan, with some words on Jay Cutler: "Smoking Jay wasn't nearly as bad as some Bears fans believe. He was never going to be a Peyton Manning kind of QB, and it's unfair to judge him by those standards. Injuries prevented him from doing better in the playoffs. For what it's worth, the Bears haven't been to the NFC Championship Game since 2011, when Cutler got his shoulder injured."
Thanks, Joel! And thanks, Jay, for sticking around the NFL for so long and giving us plenty of laughs.
