Oct. 28--When former Chicago Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher candidly shared his thoughts on struggling quarterback Jay Cutler last week, the assessment went viral. Predictably.
There's a formula for these kinds of things. Former Player X drops honest criticism on the air regarding Current Player Y and all hell breaks loose. So it didn't matter that Urlacher's Week 7 comments on "Kap and Haugh" on WGWG-FM 87.7 were neither all that scathing nor even that original, echoing sentiments paraphrased in bars and living rooms all across Chicago weekly.
What mattered was a former teammate of Cutler's had expressed skepticism in the Bears' massive investment in the quarterback.
Said Urlacher: "The NFL is not a talent contest. It's a winning contest. You want to win football games, that's what it comes down to. ... Financially, he is one of the elite guys in the NFL. You look at his contract, he was paid like an elite quarterback, if I am not mistaken. He just hasn't produced like an elite quarterback."
Those comments stirred plenty of debate on social media, on sports talk radio and in the echo chamber of NFL analysis shows on cable. Urlacher's words also, apparently, caught the attention of Bears general manager Phil Emery, the man who gave Cutler a seven-year, $126 million contract extension in January less than a year after coming to an impasse in negotiations to extend Urlacher's career.
On Monday afternoon, during a Bears midseason assessment news conference at Halas Hall, Emery was asked what he made of Urlacher's remarks.
"It didn't bother me," the Bears GM said. "Everybody is entitled to their thoughts and opinions. (But) it did hit a research project for me."
And here came the results. By Emery's count, he said Monday, the Bears played 38 games over the four seasons in which Cutler and Urlacher were teammates and both were healthy. Emery's asserted that his research project showed the Bears went 26-12 in those games. His data also showed that the Bears were 1-6 when Cutler was out but Urlacher played and 9-12 when Urlacher was out and Cutler played.
In double-checking that data, the Tribune found a total of 39 games (including the 2010 playoffs) in which both Cutler and Urlacher started, with the Bears going 26-13. The team was 9-10 between 2009 and 2012 in games in which Cutler played and Urlacher didn't and 2-6 when the linebacker played and the quarterback didn't.
Either way: The numbers are close. And Emery crunched them, dissected them and squeezed them into this conclusion.
"The only thing that I can get from all that is they were really good for each other," Emery said. "They're both fine football players, lead in their own way and are both great for the organization."
Cutler's struggles during the Bears' 3-5 start -- he now has 12 turnovers on the season -- will only intensify the debate as the team heads into its off week. Sunday's lopsided loss in New England in which Tom Brady and the Patriots showed the Bears what football on an elite level looks like won't help either.
Currently cast as one of the NFL's most disappointing teams with an offense and a quarterback who are not living up to preseason projections, the Bears have a lot to do during their "off" week. And the research of Emery and coach Marc Trestman will go far deeper than the discussions that Urlacher triggered last week.
