The Media Finds Cutler Juice To Be Scrumptious
It seems like just yesterday, the Bears were a team often to be ignored or discounted by media types outside of Chicago. Even as they strolled to a 13-3 record in 2006 and worked their way to Super Bowl XLI, the talk centered more on Rex Grossman’s inadequacies, and less on the accomplishments of the defense, the running game or Devin Hester.
So why is it now, three years removed from a playoff appearance and fresh off a very average 9-7 season, the Bears are as close to becoming the darlings of the NFC as they have been in recent memory?
Let me tell you why: quarterback, quarterback, quarterback.
I’ll save you the Bears-haven’t-had-a-quarterback-like-this-since… rhetoric, but it’s all so invariably true. And the NFL has rewarded Jerry Angelo and the Bears for their efforts in making the Jay Cutler trade happen.
The team will play five prime time games in 2009; count them, five.
SI’s Peter King ranks the Bears fourth in his post-free-agency, post-draft power rankings. Naturally, King explains the quarterback position to be key in determining his order. As he puts it: “the best teams have ‘em. The worst teams don’t.”
ESPN’s John Clayton calls the Bears one of his ten teams “set to shock” this season. Clayton pairs the acquisition of Cutler with having the league’s easiest schedule to predict the Bears will win 11 games.
Would an Orton or Grossman-led team of this caliber have garnered as much attention or commendation?
Oh yes, boys and girls. The media loves the Bears now, because the media loves quarterbacks. And the Bears have one. Finally. Toss in all the melodrama surrounding Cutler in Denver; Josh McDaniels, Bus Cook, Pat Bowlen, and diabetes; and you have all the pieces needed to peak one hell of an interest.
If only the Bears knew a quarterback meant so much before.
