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Nothing valid behind shots at Cutler

It’s a little uncomfortable standing up for Bears quarterback Jay Cutler, but somebody has to.

But Cutler took a couple of bad raps Sunday — first in the game and then from critics.

Which shouldn’t come as any surprise, of course.

The Bears’ quarterback hasn’t earned the benefit of doubt, not even when he suffers what would be a credible injury to anybody else in the NFL.

Cutler brought a lot of this grief on himself. People don’t like him, don’t like his demeanor, don’t like his facial expressions, don’t like his language — body or verbal or otherwise.

Players around the league started Tweeting insults at Cutler even before the Bears’ 21-14 loss to the Packers was complete.

“Aw, (bleep) ’em,” Bears center Olin Kreutz said of the Cutler critics.

Cutler’s crime was leaving the NFC championship game with an injured knee. One problem: Hardly anybody saw the play on which he was hurt.

The NFL code sort of insists if you can walk you can play, and if you can’t walk you can take painkillers so you can walk, play and contribute.

Cutler apparently was injured near the end of the first half. He played one series of the second half and didn’t return.

“He took a lot of hits,” Kreutz, a tough guy who expects teammates to be tough, said in defense of Cutler. “I could see his knee wiggling when he walked. He tried to go and couldn’t.”

The Bears didn’t lose this game because Cutler missed most of the second half. They lost it because most of them didn’t play well enough to beat a Packers team that didn’t play all that well either.

Maybe teammates defended Cutler out of gratitude for deflecting attention away from them. Or maybe it was simply the right thing to do.

Look, the one thing Cutler hasn’t been accused of over his NFL career is being soft.

Didn’t anyone see that hit that sent him whirlybirding into the end zone last season? What about all the times he was knocked down and got up this season?

Much of the criticism is about Cutler’s image.

A recent espn.com column mentioned unflattering incidents with teammates when Cutler was with the Broncos. San Diego quarterback Philip Rivers repeatedly ripped him when they both played in the AFC West.

Quarterbacks are injured every week in the NFL. Rarely is their manhood debated.

Cutler? Many want to charge that he should have gutted out all of the second half of such an important game unless both his legs required amputation.

After several questions about Cutler, Bears coach Lovie Smith finally said, “Hey, guys, he hurt his knee and was out, all right?”

In other words, end of story.

These particular allegations are the worst a football player can hear.

Say Cutler has poor throwing mechanics, say his decision-making is bad, say his leadership qualities need work …

Even say that the Bears might have been better off with Caleb Hanie at quarterback because Cutler was so ineffective in the first half …

But those are fighting words when an NFL player is accused of not being tough enough to overcome pain in a conference championship game.

“Nothing like jealous people at home watching,” said Bears linebacker Brian Urlacher.

Even if all previous allegations leveled at Jay Cutler were valid, this one isn’t.