Jim Harbaugh defends 'outstanding' Jay Cutler from critics who don't know him
Cutler has worked at Harbaugh's camps in the past, so the two know each other
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3 min read
Jay Cutler, one of the most unpopular players in the league who just suffered a potentially serious thumb injury during a horrific loss to the Eagles on Monday night, could use some support. It seems he has found some, namely Jim Harbaugh.
The former 49ers coach and current coach at Michigan stuck up for Cutler during an appearance on "The Dan Patrick Show." According to Harbaugh, Cutler's critics don't really know him.
"I would just talk to the people that know him -- his teammates," Harbaugh said. "And I actually do know Jay Cutler. I've been around Jay Cutler many times. He is a serious guy. He is a hard worker. I watched him coach at our camp the last two summers in a row. He's outstanding. So, I think people that speculate that don't know him, that's just speculation. You don't know somebody unless you know them."
To Harbaugh's point, Cutler's teammates do appear to like him, with notable players like Kyle Long and Kevin White regularly speaking highly of him. White even went so far as to compare Cutler to a "pretty girl that doesn't wear makeup."
"Jay Cutler is a good person," White told Sports Illustrated's Ben Baskin this offseasn. "He wants to win. He's a good teammate and he cares a lot. He is not selfish at all. Any selfish quarterback would have told me to come back and play [at the end of the season], even at 75 percent. He's just a great guy. We need to clean Jay's name up. He has a bad rep for no reason and I don't like it. I came in and everyone was telling me, Jay's an a--hole, you're going to hate Cutler. I was like, I want to get to know this dude first. And it's just not true at all. None of it. Jay is like the pretty girl that doesn't wear makeup and doesn't go out, so nobody really knows that she's pretty."
Harbaugh, a former Bears quarterback, also told Patrick that a quarterback's personality has very little to do with a quarterback's performance. Cutler, of course, has been demonized repeatedly in the past for his demeanor, namely because he doesn't smile often on the sideline.
"All players play within their personalities," Harbaugh said. "The personality has very little to do with -- to me -- how a quarterback performs or how they're treated or how they're respected by their teammates. You respect people that are who they are, and have the personality that they have. So, by your effort, by your talent -- that's how you're known."
The admiration appears to be mutual. At Harbaugh's camp last summer, Cutler admitted that he'd like to play for him. With Harbaugh out of the NFL, that probably won't happen.
Then again, if Cutler's injury is serious -- Bears coach John Fox called it a sprained thumb -- he could be on his way out of Chicago this offseason, given the Bears can cut him with very little financial consequences. Perhaps if Harbaugh leaves Michigan in the near future, the two can team up in the NFL, though that seems unlikely due to all the success Harbaugh has enjoyed since he made the move to the college game after the 2014 season.
This is the point in the article where I'd normally defend Cutler and talk about how Harbaugh is right in his analysis, but being a Cutler defender is tough work these days and the past 24 hours have been tougher than most. Luckily, I've already defended Cutler many, many times on this site. So, if you're looking to join White's unofficial "clean Jay's name up" campaign, you can read them there.
