NFL Chicago Bears

Benching Jay Cutler Won’t Solve Chicago Bears’ Problems

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By @bradberreman24

Jay Cutler, Chicago Bears, Marc Trestman, Jimmy Clausen

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The Chicago Bears entered the season with high hopes, from both in and outside the organization.

However, Monday night’s 31-15 loss to the New Orleans Saints, which was not as close as the score indicated, was their third straight defeat and their sixth loss in their last eight games. Chicago will finish no better than 7-9 this season now, and quite possibly in the cellar of the NFC North when it’s all said and done. As a result, head coach Marc Trestman’s job status has been in serious doubt for awhile as the season has gone downhill.

Quarterback Jay Cutler leads the NFL in interceptions with 18, and total turnovers with 24, including six interceptions during Chicago’s three-game losing streak. He is not without fault, and he is the most obvious face of the Bears’ underachievement this season, but Wednesday’s news that Cutler will be benched in favor of Jimmy Clausen for the final two regular-season games still came as a big surprise.

Trestman admitted again on Wednesday that he hasn’t been able to get the most out of Cutler, but the decision to go with Clausen has no upside, while also potentially painting Cutler as the only problem the Bears have. That is obviously not the case, and as a long-time, albeit tentative at times, defender of Cutler, I’m unwilling to point the finger strictly at him.

Clausen has attempted nine passes over three games so far this season, in his first regular season action since his 2010 rookie season with the Carolina Panthers. His performance that season has little predictive value in terms of trying to determine how he’ll play now, but Clausen’s results in his only extended NFL action-three touchdowns, nine interceptions and a 52.5 percent completion percentage over 13 games (10 starts)-were obviously not good and paved the way for Cam Newton to replace him in 2011.

A report on Tuesday night from Dan Bernstein of WSCR in Chicago that Trestman will likely be fired after the season is not exactly surprising news at this point. So the move to bench Cutler came from a coach that is clearly a lame duck with nothing to lose, or perhaps pressure came from above him in the organization to sit Cutler down. But general manager Phil Emery’s job security is not great these days either, since he passed on likely Coach of the Year Bruce Arians to hire Trestman and also likely spearheaded the decision to give Cutler a contract extension that included $54 million in guaranteed money less than a year ago.

The Bears’ calling card was once a very good, and opportunistic, defense. But key players (Brian Urlacher, Lance Briggs, Charles Tillman) all got old at the same time, and they have not been capably replaced at all over the last few years. The ill-advised decision to sign a clearly in decline Jared Allen last offseason has only exacerbated the problem, as he has not added much to Chicago’s pass rush with just five sacks to this point.

Through 14 games, Chicago has allowed a league-high 409 points (29.2 per game), and they are also 30th in total defense (382.4 yards per game) and 31st against the pass (272.2 yards per game). Add in a league-high 33 passing touchdowns allowed thus far, and this is clearly not your father’s (or your older brother’s) Bears’ defense right now.

Trestman may simply be in over his head as an NFL head coach, even with just two seasons under his belt, since he has a subdued public personality and has sounded more and more like a broken record when offering excuses for the team’s failings to the media over the last few weeks. It’s not his fault if he is better suited to being an offensive coordinator or quarterbacks coach, and there’s probably a place for him somewhere in the league, but Trestman’s arrival in Chicago as the “Quarterback Whisperer” brought high hopes that Cutler would finally reach his full potential.

Cutler is gaining a well-deserved reputation as a coach killer, and barring a significant turnaround, he will leave a similar trail wherever his career path goes from here. Mike Shanahan in Denver, now Trestman; who’s the next head coach for Cutler to disappoint and ultimately cost his job?

Cutler is an easy target for everyone that cares to judge him, due largely to his lackluster body language and an at times petulant demeanor on and off the field. Much of the criticism he has gotten could be avoided if he was playing better, and obviously if the Bears were winning more, but for once he was on track to play all 16 games this season after battling injuries during most of his time with the Bears. Cutler did start all 16 games in 2009, his first season in Chicago, but he also threw a league-high 26 interceptions that season and he has never become a more polished or, more importantly, a consistently winning quarterback since then.

Big changes are likely coming for the Bears during the offseason, and time will tell if trading or cutting Cutler becomes the centerpiece of a roster overhaul. That might be a place to start, with plenty of teams sure to be looking for a quarterback and willing to think they have a coach who can unlock Cutler’s potential, but without big improvement on defense and a better offensive line (37 sacks allowed so far this season) no quarterback will be able to lead the Bears anywhere close to the Super Bowl again anytime soon.

Brad Berreman is a Columnist at Rant Sports.com. Connect with him on Twitter or Google +.

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