An open letter to Chicago Bears fans and the national media

 Todays Blog Brought to you by my buddy Ryan Sudol.  Well said my friend!

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An open letter to Chicago Bears fans and the national media:

by Ryan Sudol on Monday, January 24, 2011 at 4:44pm

What do the words “Idiot, moron, and clown” all have in common?  They were all names that I was called prior to September 1st of last year.  People that know me have their own reasons for calling me that, but for the average Bears fan that I talked to, it was a name I was called because I said that the Bears would win over 10 games before the season even started.  When I would ask: “How many games do you think the Bears will win?”  The answer I would receive was never more than 7 games.  So now here we stand in the wake of an NFC Championship loss to the hated Green Bay Packers and the Bears finished off the season at a “disappointing” 12-6 record.  What is the real disappointment though?  The answer is simple – the fans and the national media.

Minutes after Caleb Hanie threw the game-ending interception, fans were burning Cutler jerseys in the parking lot in effigy. They questioned his heart.  The heart of a man who, while sacked more than any quarterback this season, still overcame a damning physical illness and managed to throw for more than 3,000 yards in consecutive seasons for the first time in BEARS HISTORY.  We now know that Jay Cutler suffered an MCL “sprain.”  Let’s get something straight for the meatball moron fans reading this.  The primary purpose of the MCL is to prevent the leg from extending too far inward, but it also helps keep the knee stable and allows it to rotate.  So if a partially torn ligament in the knee isn’t a severe enough injury to sit out on, what is?  A concussion is just a headache right?  A sprain just some soreness right?  The MRI results are in, and again fans…you lose.

Now what about those people calling Jay a quitter?  Not just fans, but NFL players, Chicago’s own Michael Wilbon, and Jason Whitlock just to name a few of the people pouring gasoline on this media fire.  Jacksonville Jaguars running back, Maurice Jones-Drew, said the “Urban Meyer rule was in effect” for Jay Cutler, suggesting he quit on his team.  Is this the same Maurice Jones-Drew who sat out the last two weeks, with a knee injury, while the Jaguars chances at the NFL postseason were eliminated?  NFL analyst Deion Sanders tweeted that he questioned Jay Cutler’s heart.  Is this the same Deion Sanders that was caught violating the NFL’s substance abuse policy?  I’m not angry or upset that people are having opinions, I’m disgusted that they are, pardon the pun, having knee-jerk reactions.  Mark Schlereth, Kerry Rhodes, and Ross Tucker all had twitteriah last night as well.  You don’t know who Ross Tucker is? Yeah…neither do I.  Derrick Brooks tweeted “FOX Havent shown any trainer looking at cutler UMMM.”  I’ll forgive the poor grammar of the great linebacker, but won’t forgive his ignorance.  Before halftime I saw Cutler surrounded by many members of the Bears organization limping to the locker room, before the rest of his team.  Just because FOX doesn’t show trainers looking at Cutler on the sidelines, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  Just because FOX doesn’t show Jay Cutler getting excited on the sidelines after a great play doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.  And just because Jay Cutler is walking on the sideline, doesn’t mean he can avoid Clay Matthews without further damaging his knee and possibly inhibiting his ability to lead the Bears into next season.  Jason Whitlock equated Cutler’s quitting on his team to LeBron James quitting on Cleveland.  Would anyone care if Earl Bennett or Chester Taylor didn’t play the second half with an MCL sprain? Probably not.  The only things that Jay Cutler and LeBron James have in common, is that they are both exceedingly good at what they do, and they both desperately want to win a championship in their respective sports.  Wilbon said Cutler isn’t worthy of the Bears defense.  Wilbon should know better than anyone that nobody in our lifetime has seen a real quarterback play football in Chicago, so who is he to judge?  It’s bad enough that the Bears fan base consists mostly of impressionable meatballs more fickle than a Tempur-pedic mattress, but to have “experts” call a professional athlete’s heart in question, from the comfort of their living room or office, is just adding to the mass idiocy.

Would you have rather seen Jay on the sidelines crying in pain because it was too painful to walk?  Would you have rather not seen Jay at all because he was having emergency surgery on his knee in the locker room?  I know, you wanted to see Jay Cutler with a cast on his leg, under center, wincing at every movement, throwing the ball through double coverage while needing Roberto Garza and Olin Kreutz’s to help him back to the huddle, right?  Or maybe you’d prefer he step into a phone booth and rip off his jersey exposing a Superman outfit.  No, instead he was on the sideline helping the emergency 3rd string quarterback try to get his team back into the game because he was physically unable to.  I’m sorry that’s not good enough for most of you, but just because you can walk on a sideline…doesn’t mean you can play football at a championship level.  Remember when Brian Urlacher hurt his wrist?  Did you burn his jersey because a “minor” injury kept him off of the field?  Or better yet, do you remember a similar situation with an NFL 4th overall draft pick in the biggest game ever?  Cedric Benson was hurt in the first of half of Super Bowl XLI and you supposed fans rode him out of town on a rail.  You are the same fan base that can’t even understand the purpose of home-field advantage.  I was waiting for it all game, and wouldn’t you know it, on the final drive I still saw Caleb Hanie’s hands going to his earholes because you obviously can’t comprehend the notion that 40,000 fans screaming may prevent your offense from working properly.  I don’t care that you spent $5,000 for a ticket, I don’t care that you buy Bears merchandise, hell I don’t even care that you invoke names like “Punky QB” and “Sid Luckman.”  Here’s the bottom line and it’s partially me begging you, the idiot Bear fan:  When you get player like Jay Cutler on your football team, don’t piss him off.  Chicago is a great city and has the potential to be a competitive football team for a long time as long as Jay Cutler is your quarterback…You want to question Jay Cutler’s heart?  I’ll challenge you with this: Go back to November 5th, 2005.  Jay Cutler and Earl Bennett were teammates at Vanderbilt and playing at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, arguably the toughest place to play in college football, better known as “The Swamp”.  Re-watch the fourth quarter as Cutler put the entire Commodore team on his shoulders and brought them back from being down two touchdowns and, if not for a ridiculous excessive celebration penalty, they would have gone for a 2 point conversion and beaten the Gators in regulation.  They lost the game in the second overtime, but on that day I knew one thing and one thing only, nobody loved playing the game of football more than Jay Cutler.

The sad truth is Bears fans, is that you don’t deserve Jay Cutler.  Nothing you’ve done this season has shown you appreciate having him as your quarterback.  You elevate Matt Forte for his amazing stats and call him the best since Payton, and you ignore Cutler’s back to back 3,000 yard seasons.  You praise Devin Hester for his returns, but ignore the fact that the first postseason pass Jay has thrown since high school was a 58 yard bomb to Greg Olsen.  And he does all of this without a viable professional offensive line or professional NFL receivers.  Johnny Knox as the Bears #1 receiver would barely make it as a #3 on the Packers or most other NFL teams with real receivers.  This team went from preseason afterthought, to one drive away from playing in Dallas and still you don’t realize how good your team was and can be. You make me sick Chicago, and you make me hope that after the ashes of your torched Cutler jerseys blow away, you realize how stupid you really are as a “Bears Fan.”

With love,

Ryan Sudol