In a somewhat surprising move, the NFL’s Miami Dolphins have signed retired former Chicago Bears and Denver Broncos quarterback Jay Cutler to a one-year deal that is for $10 million, but has potential, with incentives, to pay him $13 million next season.
The Dolphins were obviously desperate, as they figure to spend the season without Ryan Tannehill, who will miss a good part of the season due to surgery required to fix stretched ligaments in his left knee.
As for his ability as a quarterback, the term journeyman would be a compliment to Cutler, as in 12 seasons, three with Denver and nine with Chicago, his statistics for percentage of passes completed, total yards, touchdown to interception ratio and quarterback rating wee strictly pedestrian.
Cutler had taken a job with Fox Sports as a game analyst following the 2016 – 2017 season, where he managed to play only five games due to a variety of injuries. Cutler’s best year was 2008, when he led the AFC in passing yards and was selected to the Pro Bowl.
Picking up Cutler, well past his prime, and a prime that was never all that prime, just serves to point out how low a regard the league has for ex-San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaerpernick, who is three times the player on his worst day than Cutler ever was on his best.
Kaerpernick has been shunned because he created controversy, and if there were anything the NFL seeks to avoid more than controversy, it would require greater brains than we have at our disposal to determine what that thing is.
Yet, all Kaerpernick did was to engage in a peaceful protest about police treatment of minorities. For that, he has been blackballed from the NFL, while in Denver, linebacker Brandon Marshall, who joined in the silent protest that consisted of kneeling during the National Anthem, was widely praised for his efforts to bring attention to the issue of unequal police treatment of minorities.
