Should NFL Teams Finally Give Up on Jay Cutler?

On April 27, Ian Rapoport of NFL Network reported veteran quarterback Jay Cutler was likely to retire. It was an expected outcome given Cutler’s mediocre results in 2016 and 2017. But as has happened with many quarterbacks wavering between retirement and continuing their careers, it appears Cutler may not be done.

In a conversation posted July 2 with his wife, reality television personality Kristin Cavallari, Cutler said he can’t be sure he’s 100 percent done and that he wouldn’t know until September. That would imply he could return to the NFL as an injury replacement.wholesale jerseys nfl

If Cutler does come back, he’ll probably want to come back as a starter, and that’s where things get complicated. He retired after the 2016 season, his last with the Chicago Bears, to start a career in broadcasting. But when Miami Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill was lost for the 2017 season to an August knee re-injury, the appeal of working with head coach Adam Gase—who had helped Cutler to a career year in Chicago in 2015—was too great to turn down. china jerseys nfl

Cutler was at his best when Gase kept him straight, both in a mechanical sense and by outlining how he needs to read defenses. Gase seemed to have an intrinsic sense of how best to deal with the downsides of Cutler’s skill set.cheap china nfl jerseys

Though he has one of the best arms of his generation and he’s more mobile than he’s given credit for being, Cutler has two major issues that have stood in the way of his development. First, he’s what you call a “see it and throw it” quarterback—he doesn’t throw with anticipation consistently. That means his play-designers need to adapt by focusing on route concepts that result in easy openings for receivers. Otherwise, Cutler will throw the ball into coverage in ways you’d expect a rookie quarterback to get chewed out for.real nfl jerseys for cheap

Cutler’s second issue is he has a supreme belief in his arm and his ability to make throws other quarterbacks can’t. While he’s proved to be correct occasionally, that’s also kept him from dealing with the mechanical issues he needs to fix to throw with consistent placement and velocity. Throughout his career, Cutler has thrown far too many passes flat-footed when he should have driven the ball with his lower body. He also tends to throw with touch with a motion similar to a fadeaway jumper in basketball, which increases the margin for error on such throws, especially in the red zone.

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