Chicago Bears: Jay Cutler Finally Sees Light, Shames Minnesota Vikings

Last week the Minnesota Vikings put up an embarrassing game against the Detroit Lions when they let Reggie Bush run wild on the ground and through the air. Earlier this week, I pegged Matt Forte to shine the brightest for the Chicago Bears today.

The game started with Vikings rookie speedster Cordarrelle Patterson returning the opening kickoff 105 yards for a touchdown. Not willing to let the air out of the balloon so quickly, Devin Hester answered with a giant return of his own.

Seven of the first nine offensive plays by the Bears put the ball in Forte’s hands as he looked to copy the success of Reggie Bush. Unfortunately sloppy play by the Bears and several silly procedural penalties let the Vikings stay in the game despite being outplayed in the first half.

I was concerned about the play of Jay Cutler through the preseason and Week 1 as his style of play and the offensive philosophy of Mark Trestman seem to clash. Trestman’s offense is designed to spread out the opposing defense to create single coverage. It calls for the quarterback to make intelligent reads and hit the open man regardless of preference.

Through the preseason and the first three quarters of this game Cutler still seemed to be confused about this. We saw him holding onto the ball too much and forcing throws to his favorite receiver Brandon Marshall for an ugly pick, followed up by a sack-fumble by Jared Allen that Brian Robison scooped up and ran back for a score.

To his shame, late in the fourth quarter Forte was stripped by Letroy Guion. The Vikings rammed the ball down the Bears’ throat with Adrian Peterson trying to wear the Bears down and salt the game away with an anti-climactic field goal by Blair Walsh.

I couldn’t help but feel like Cutler was about to crap his contract year away for the sake of his gunslinger style of play.

All of that changed when Cutler led the Bears’ offense out for the final drive of the game. He looked crisp and precise, finding the open man on each play, spreading it around and taking what the Vikings’ defense gave him.

What we saw in this game wasn’t just the Vikings finding yet another way to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. What we saw here was the very beginning of Jay Cutler finally seeing the light. If he plays the rest of this season like he did in the 4th quarter drive that put the Bears up on the Vikings 31-30, then Jay Cutler and Mark Trestman will have just made the 2-0 Bears a force to be feared across the landscape of the NFC.

Eric Beuning is a Football writer for www.RantSports.com.

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