The Chicago Bears quarterback on being the butt of a South Park joke, going close to the Super Bowl and dating a reality TV dancer
Jay Cutler, the Chicago Bears quarterback, once featured in a South Park episode in which he was told: "You might be good one day."
Then at the Denver Broncos, that time has long since arrived. It is the famous franchise of Walter Payton, William 'The Refrigerator' Perry and Jim McMahon that is still striving to achieve excellence 25 years on from their sole Super Bowl triumph, and who are struggling as this term's NFL season unfolds.
Cutler, 27, leads the Bears at Wembley on Sunday where they face the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the now annual regular-season NFL showdown staged on English soil.
While Tampa, Malcolm Glazer's NFL organization, have a 4-2 start and head the NFC South, the Bears stand at 3-3 in the NFC North, where the current Super Bowl champions and their great rivals, the Green Bay Packers, have a perfect 6-0 record. This is not the best way to start the latest attempt to end that 25-year quest to emulate Payton and company. In Cutler the Bears have an on-field general with the requisite gunslinger's attitude. He recently flew to Los Angeles to see his on-off girlfriend Kristin Cavallari perform in Dancing With Stars during a game week.
Pictured the next day in a Chicago newspaper with Cavallari, a US reality TV star, his spikiness appears when Cutler is asked about the pink trousers he was wearing. "I don't think they were pink, they were more of a salmon colour. The colour [in the paper] was probably off. I'd love the press to be less intrusive and have privacy and keep some things to myself with my relationships but that's not how it is, and it's not going to change anytime soon," he says.
Had there been any ribbing in the locker room from his team-mates that morning? "They haven't seen them yet. I'm going to try to sneak out."
Would he ever consider donning sequins and learning the foxtrot to appear on Dancing With Stars? "No. After knowing what Kristian does, I'll gladly pass," he says.
Cutler is not considered among the current band of elite quarter-backs, such as Tom Brady of the New England Patriots, the Indianapolis Colts' Peyton Manning, and Green Bay's Aaron Rodgers, who all possess at least one Super Bowl ring, and who, between them, own a raft of records.
Cutler, in his sixth year as a professional after being drafted as the 11th pick by the Broncos in 2006, has more a modest CV: the highlights are being named a reserve for the 2008 Pro Bowl, and playing in last season's NFC championship, when the Packers defeated the Bears 21-14.
But he does not lack confidence. Asked if there is added pressure in having to emulate McMahon, the legendary QB of the '86 team, Cutler says: "That's a little heavy. I wouldn't say legend, maybe his character might be a legend. Jim is very well known here because no-one else has won a Super Bowl, but living up to Jim McMahon I don't worry about that."
Cutler suffered a knee injury during the third quarter of that NFC championship game. This forced him to sit out the remainder and he later drew criticism from fans who questioned the severity of the problem. The Packers would not have been in the play-offs at all if the Bears had beaten them in the final regular season match. Instead, they went on to win Super Bowl XLV, their fourth title, and Cutler says: "It didn't make it any easier. To get to that point and not be able to finish the game, it hurt. That's a nightmare there so you have to get over it."
In the summer Cutler, who is a diabetic, became Cavallari's financee before breaking off the engagement soon after. This moved some Bears fans to post sympathetic messages on Cutler's Facebook page which caused the terse response: "Thank you all for the support, but if you talk bad about Kristin I will delete and block you. It's unecessary [sic] and heartless. Also, don't say now I can play football, I could play football when I had her compared to when I don't. Football is the least of my worries, so have some respect."
Esteem certainly flows from Cutler regarding the Bears' offensive linemen, who protect him from snarling linebackers whose job is to separate him from his senses. "You've got to feed them, get them Christmas presents. I got them Cartier watches last year, plane tickets, custom suits from a guy in New York, different stuff," he says.
On that 2007 appearance in South Park in which he was also informed, "You kinda suck", Cutler smiles and adds: "It was all in good fun. I didn't come out of it that bad, they're obviously going to knock you but it was fair."
Sky Sports will show live coverage of 57 NFL games this season. Chicago v Tampa Bay at Wembley live on Sky Sports HD3 on Sunday.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/oct/22/jay-cutler-chicago-bears-kristin-cavallari
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