As far as Cutler is concerned people have to also look at what a lot of other mediocre QBs are getting. His pay isn't really out of line with what they get. Look at what Ryan, Romo, Stafford, Flacco, Kaepernick, and others are now getting. Roethlisberger and Eli Manning aren't that great and make a little under what the new contracts are paying. Maybe I'm confusing him with somebody else, but isn't even freaking Andy Dalton getting a crapton of money now? In the next few years Wilson and Luck will probably be on that list. It's just the nature of having so few available players for a very sought after position. True, none of them are as good as somebody like Aaron Rogers who they get paid around the same as, but they have enormous leverage considering the teams just can't get anybody else who is remotely reasonable if they jettison their QBs. Manning and Brady are actually giving their teams great deals at what they are asking more than the other mediocre QBs are robbing their teams.
Now I think there is a risk teams take with that attitude. I'm of a opinion that a NFL team should either have a truly elite QB or be searching for the next elite QB as settling for mediocrity from the position usually leaves it too hard to win, but also puts the team in that middle zone where they are also afraid to let go of what they have because they know it will be worse for a while.
All that said I never got some of the criticism of Cutler. If somebody wants to fault him for not advancing in discipline after coming to the Bears and continuing his gunslinging ways without the actual ability to pull it off to an adequate degree, like early Favre could, then I can see that. I don't blame him for playing under one of the worst offensive lines, bad receivers, and offensive schemes in his time in the NFL once he got to the Bears though. I think it's done damage to his career that can't be reversed now. He would have been much better off in Denver. Even less I don't get the wussy label people have given him. Mostly that comes from one incident where he couldn't finish a game because he was in fact very seriously injured. What's worse is that if he would have came out, tried to play and hurt his teams chances of winning, or was on the sidelines hamming it up and crying like a little girl for show people would have probably been more lenient towards him. If he pulled a Robert Griffin and blew his knee out on the field people would have told him how stupid he was. Just think about it though. If he would have came out and faked not being able to take the pain he was under it would have been better in the public's perception. That's kind of sad. He is what he is though, a flawed QB that's still one of the above average ones in the league. It's nothing to get ecstatic about, but it could be a lot worse.
