Once Upon a Time Cutler had the chance to be the Nihilist King of the NFL, but he gave so little fucks he couldn’t even be bothered to do that
As Trubisky keeps making just enough plays to string Bears’ fans along each week, and Nagy keeps completely refusing to reflect on his play-calling choices , it looks like Chicago may be in for another disappointing season.
Sounds like a good time to re-visit one of the Green Bay Packers’ best quarterbacks: Jay Cutler.
I met a Jay Cutler fan once. They’re hard to find. Like this rare flying squirrel in China.
And although my encounter with this Cutler fan was brief, much like the encounter between this flying squirrel and this videographer, it was an encounter that changed my life forever.
That is, the part of my life that thinks about Jay Cutler. Which is a very small part of my overall life, similar to the way a flying squirrel is very small compared to the size of mainland China.
Stranger Things Have Happened in Vanderbilt
Meeting a Jay Cutler fan is like if The Upside Down was a person, but less exciting and only slightly less life threatening.
Perhaps more accurately, a Jay Cutler fan is like an Upside Down person who has the personality of a struggling coffee shop: you walk in and go, “oh…but..well….huh…I’ve never seen this done this way but I guess…that doesn’t mean it can’t …be…this way?”
To explain. The following story is 100% true. It was told to me the way your favorite stories have been told to you by your favorite friends.
- Friend of my close friend walks into the men’s room at some sports bar or sports arena.
- He’s a big fan of Jay Cutler, a rare person.
- JC Fan walks up to the urinal and just as he’s getting started he realizes, “holy shit, I’m peeing next to Jay Cutler”.
- Most people would register this as the same type of non-event as suddenly realizing they’re standing next to, say, an old, crusty muffin. But again, rare person.
- So JC Fan just goes right into it, “Jay, I’m such a big fan. I’ve been following you since Vanderbilt. You’re great, I lov-”.
- I would like to imagine Cutler cut him off mid-sentence, but either way, Jay Cutler’s response, to this fan at the urinal gushing his heart out to his hero is, and will always be, I swear to god: “DOOOONNNNNN’TTTTT CAAAAAAAARRRRRREEE”.
A full throated, head tilted back, bellow.
And then Jay Cutler left the bathroom.
I still say the phrase “DONNNNNN’TTTTT CAAAARRRREEEE” at least once a week to this day.
But what I love about this story is how perfectly it matches with everything we’ve ever seen from Jay Cutler. Now I don’t think he’s a bad person, like say, Robert Mugabe. But I would think even Robert Mugabe would play through a strained thigh muscle during an NFC championship game. I mean, say what you will about Robert Mugabe, but the man wouldn’t ride a stationary bike on the sideline while his team lost their chance at a Super Bowl.
Emo Jay Cutler is Sad
Watching Cutler play twice a year (I am a Packers fan) was like watching a sad teenager get frustrated with his parents’ insistence that he be polite while company is over for dinner. As this Around The NFL reporter wrote, there’s a strange allure to watching a professional football player actively not care.
I’ve always strangely admired Cutler’s brand of Don’t-Give-A … let’s just call it DGAF. He never seemed particularly interested in what you or I think of him. Many past teammates will attest that Cutler cares little about how those in his own locker room perceive him, either. Cutler has gone through 11 NFL seasons living in his own fortress of Cutlertude: A man so seemingly disconnected from his interpersonal shortcomings that photoshops of Cutler carelessly dangling a cigarette from his mouth — a perfect visual metaphor — could become an enduring internet meme. Smokin’ Jay don’t care
In fact, Emo Cutler always looked like we was surprised he was invited to dinner in the first place.
His face was a perpetually frozen, “but i don’t waaannnnnaa”, a pinched, angsty mess for the 12 years (Kaepernick still does not have a job) in which he was paid to be a quarterback.
At a certain point in almost every game you could just feel him go, “fuck it”.
Not the fun, Brett Favre “this is gonna work!” fuck it, but the disheveled, broken-spirited “fuck it” of an old, old coal miner knowing his breathing mask isn’t helping much.
The only difference is that old coal miners have dignity.
And this is where the story takes another turn.
I tell the “Don’t Care” story whenever it even kind-of socially makes sense to tell this story. So when I found a Bears fan at the wedding of my girlfriend’s friend, the telling had to be done.
In a group of about 5 or 6 of us, I relay this story. Again, this might be the only story I’m good at telling.
And this man’s response to the punch line was, of course, raucous laughter followed by, wait for it, “oh..(sighing wistfully) shit, he IS awesome”.
And that was the first time I went, “but…well…I don’t….huh”.
As I mentioned earlier, what I love about this story is how completely it matches with who Jay Cutler has always appeared to be, on and off the football field: a sad, old miner from West Virginia except without dignity.
But the way this guy at this wedding sighed and proclaimed how awesome this story made Jay Cutler changed my whole worldview on Jay Cutler.
Almost.
The pics of Cutler giving the paparazzi the finfer, his dour, down turned mouth, his constant need for a cigarette, his complete inability to display any signs of joy while he makes millions of dollars playing a game…maybe guy-at-wedding was right? Maybe Jay Cutler’s complete shittiness is actually cool?
I feel dirty just writing it, but if Jay Cutler were a rock star we’d love all these things about him.
Band needs him to perform on the biggest stage they’ve ever played?
Fuck it, thigh hurts.
Band wants him to just NOT throw the musical equivalent of an interception?
Fuck you, interceptions for everyone.
Fans want one, small, almost immeasurable sign that he’s enjoying his job?
Fuck you.
Jay Cutler didn’t play football for the fans. Jay Cutler barely played football at all.
In rock stars, that’s everything we want. We want, or at least in the 70s we wanted, rock stars to be angry, aloof, above it. That was half the appeal. Hell, that’s the torch that rappers picked up and are carrying to this day: I’m too cool to even give a fuck about the one thing that everyone loves me for doing. In rockstars and rappers, it’s cool.
But that’s the difference.
Rockstars and rap stars excel at something.
If Jay Cutler had stayed in the 2010 NFC Championship game and the Bears had somehow won, then went to the Super Bowl and somehow won, Jay Cutler could’ve been a nihilist icon for the ages. Everything about a player’s legacy can change with one ring.
But Jay Cutler is and will always be Jay Cutler, he will always be the guy who sat out the biggest game of his career, his bellow forever echoing, long after he leaves this earth, down sad, forgotten hallways, “DONNNN’T… CAARRRRE…” followed by a puff, ever so faint under the dimming lights, of stale cigarette smoke.