NFL Armageddon 2011- Cutler saga sacks NFLPA solidarity efforts - Ingles

Friday, January 28 2011

Now that quarterback Jay Cutler’s sprained left knee has taken its place in Chicago lore alongside Steve Bartman’s hand, Mrs. O’Leary’s cow and Al Capone’s vault, the national debate over the quarterback’s fortitude inspires a more provocative question:

How can the National Football League Players’ Association, girding for its messy showdown with owners, hope to achieve solidarity when some NFLPA members accuse an injured player of gutlessness?

Regardless of how the public perceived the supposed indifference Cutler displayed over sitting out virtually the entire second half of the NFC Championship game last Sunday -- personally, I’m convinced his absence gave the Bears their only chance of a comeback against the Packers -- he was due the respect of his peers for no other reason than the imminent storm on the labor front.

Determining an equitable distribution of profits remains the most daunting challenge to a collective-bargaining agreement that would assure the NFL of a football season in 2011. But there are related issues.

Owners are pushing for an expansion of the regular-season schedule, from 16 to 18 games. With good reason, the players’ association contends that two additional games will make its athletes more vulnerable to the physical breakdowns that can shorten careers.

And while a compromise figures to be reached that includes expanded rosters and an increase in minimum salary, it’s certain that any compromise will be preceded by an owner-mandated lockout in early March.

In the meantime, NFLPA president DeMaurice Smith is resorting to the sort of shameful rhetoric that makes it difficult to empathize with the legitimate misgivings of his constituents.

“We are at war!” Smith declared the other day. Excuse me, General Patton, but you are not at war. You never have been at war, and you never will be at war.

“Nobody stays strong without fighting,” Smith lectured a group of 20 player representatives a few months ago. “Nobody negotiates their way to strength. Nobody talks their way to a good deal. Nobody sits down and just has miraculous things happen.”

Yikes. With a blowhard like this guy calling the shots for the NFLPA, there’s a temptation to put the over-under year on the resumption of Sunday afternoon football at 2525.

As for the men who put their bodies at risk by participating in this dangerous game week after week, you’d think they might want to hang tight. Friend or foe, intense rival or roster-fringe obscurity, they’re all in this together -- part of a brotherhood -- right?

But when the Bears team doctors told Cutler to watch the rest of the second half from the sideline Sunday -- an order met with an apparent minimum of resistance from the dour-faced quarterback -- several of his players’ association peers immediately posted their interpretation of Cutler’s docile body language via Twitter texts.

“If I’m on chicago team Jay Cutler has to wait till me and the team shower and get dressed and leave before he comes in the locker room!” noted Cardinals defensive tackle Darnell Dockett, who evidently was too overwhelmed by his pre-med course load at Florida State to devote any time to learning elementary grammar. (It all worked out. Dockett is an obviously talented player, worthy of his status as a mainstay of a fearsome Arizona defense that gave up a mere 27 points per game this season.)

“If he was my teammate,” Eagles cornerback Asante Samuel wrote of Cutler, “I would be looking sideways.” (As opposed to Cutler’s actual teammates. They looked interviewers straight in the eyes while vouching for his toughness.)

Tampa Bay linebacker Derrick Brooks insisted Cutler could have returned by gulping down some pain relievers: “MEDS ARE AVAILABLE,” tweeted Dr. Brooks, perhaps unaware that Cutler, as a Type-1 diabetic, typically is denied available meds.

A surprising amount of hostility toward Cutler came from Seattle defenders, who gave up 21 points in their divisional playoff game at Chicago before their uniforms got dirty.

“You dont not play in the NFC championship game cuz your knee hurt, only way I’d come out is if my knee is jus shattered,” tweeted linebacker Aaron Curry. (When Cutler was alerted of that stinging critique, his likely response could’ve been: “Aaron Who?”) At least Curry had the decency to resist pummeling Cutler with the schoolyard insults used by Seattle teammate Raheem Brock.

“Cutler u little siSsy,” Brock wrote of the siSsy who, against the Seahawks, became the first quarterback in 50 years to throw for two touchdowns and run for two touchdowns in a postseason game.

Brock then went on a rant too creepy to be dignified by in print. But, hey, Raheem, we get it. You’re the toughest of the tough, the meanest of the mean, and the 35 points your team allowed against an offense operated by the wimpy Jay Cutler were clearly a fluke.

I understand the NFLPA’s stance against the owners. I understand it when Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth, during a recent conference call with reporters, says: “We’re just not going to budge on health and safety, and we’d like to gain more ground on ways we can protect former players and current players.”

All the best on your noble quest, Domonique. The health and safety of these phenomenally entertaining athletes in the NFL should be everybody’s paramount concern.

But amid the social-media revolution, I’m wondering: How do you protect a current player from current players?

Jay Cutler hurt his knee last Sunday.

Instead of demanding an inquiry about the slippery field that posed an unsafe work place, many of his NFLPA colleagues chose to mock him.

This is a brotherhood? This article was written by John McGrath and appeared in the Chicago Sun-Times.