Did Jay Cutler Give Up?

Bears fans are none too happy that their season ended one game short of the Super Bowl, especially considering that it came at the hands of their long time rivals, the Green Bay Packers. Like with most big loses in any sport, frustration is being shown by many of the fans and critics. It seems that the frustration is being thrown at Jay Cutler, the QB of the Bears. Cutler had to leave the game because of a sprained MCL. He tried to play in the 2nd half but only played one series and came out. Todd Collins came in and tried to make the comeback but struggled leaving it to the third string QB, Caleb Hanie. While Hanie did make a difference, he still fell short and lost the game. The actual controversy is that many are saying that Cutler could've stayed in the game with that injury and that he just quit on the team.

It seems a little unfair to criticize someone for being hurt. True, many players in all sports try to play through the pain and sometimes can but the fact is that there are many injuries that you just can't play with. Perhaps Cutler felt he was less effective with this injury (not that he was really any good that night). I will concede that Cutler could've helped more on the sidelines but other than that, there was nothing he could do.

Now even if Cutler did give up (which I don't think happened), I don't think it was him trying to hurt his team but trying to help them. Now hear me out. He was already having a bad night throwing under 50%, only 80 yards, and 1 INT. Him being injured and not getting any better, he may have figured it would've done no good with him staying in the ball game so he left. Hanie did do all right and might've done better if he was the 2nd string QB instead of the 3rd (would've been in for a bit longer).

Who knows what was going on in Jay Cutler's head. Quite honestly, it seems like he was injured enough to come out of the ball game. It's the NFC Championship for heaven's sake. Whether you are behind or not, you keep going.