Chicago Bears general manager Phil Emery has to be disappointed at the team’s 3-5 start to the season. And following a humiliating 51-23 loss to the New England Patriots on Sunday, Emery had some interesting things to say about Jay Cutler and the rest of the team (via NFL.com).
We’re a 3-5 team and he’s a 3-5 quarterback right now. We still have some things we have to clean up.
Jay, like a lot of players in that position, has a little bit a gunslinger personality, in terms of, ‘I wanna be the guy to make the plays.’ He trusts his arm. Those are habits. Habits are hard to improve.
If the Bears are a 3-5 team and he’s (Cutler) is a 3-5 quarterback, doesn’t that also make Emery a 3-5 general manager? After all, he is the one who signed the veteran signal caller to a contract that included $54 million guaranteed this past offseason.
Things just aren’t going too swimmingly for a team that started the season with playoff aspirations but sit three game behind the division-leading Detroit Lions heading into the second half of its schedule.
Emery also concluded that he has seen an improvement from Cutler and the Bears from previous seasons.
Have I seen improvement the last two years? Yes I have. Because I know where we were at two years ago, and I know how many sacks he took, how much pressure and hits that he played through. … I think he’s bought all the way in, in terms of, here’s what important, here’s the concepts we’re trying to accomplish.
Whether Bears fans like it, Cutler is the team’s quarterback for the foreseeable future, especially with the guaranteed money he’s still owned. It just remains to be seen if the “improvement” Emery has seen will be enough for the Bears to contend in the future. After all, their 2014 season is already pretty much over just halfway through.
Photo: USA Today