Teammate criticizes Cutler, says QB was wrong
While most teammates chose to ignore or downplay Jay Cutler’s tossing of his teammates under the bus in Green Bay, cornerback D.J. Moore was critical of the quarterback’s behavior.
In addition to making derogatory comments about others while declining to acknowledge his 4 interceptions, Cutler gave a halfhearted shove in the back to offensive left tackle J’Marcus Webb on the sideline.
“What did he do?” Moore said. “Did he shove the guy? Oh, yeah, I think so. I don’t think you can act like that. To make it seem like it’s just (the other guy’s) fault or whatnot.
“I think it’s just wrong, though, honestly. I would feel the same kind of way if he did me like that.
“It would make it seem like, well, the reason I’m having a bad game is because of what you’re doing and not me taking accountability for myself because I’m throwing these type of passes or doing this type of read. So it’s just a tough situation.”
Webb chose not to speak with the media after Monday’s practice and was not available during the open locker-room period earlier in the afternoon.
While Cutler apologists have suggested that criticism of him was unwarranted and overblown, Moore didn’t agree.
“When you act like that with your own teammates on the sidelines, it’s something different that you normally wouldn’t do,” he said. “You might say it in the locker room or something. But to do it like he did, it’s just different. It’s just weird.”
Moore and Cutler played together at Vanderbilt, and the cornerback suggested that Cutler’s behavior wasn’t surprising and isn’t likely to change.
“You know, he is what he is,” Moore said. “He’s always been that way, so I wouldn’t expect him to change.”
But Moore said the situation would resolve itself and that Cutler would weather whatever fallout occurs.
“(He’s) the quarterback, and he makes a lot of money,” Moore said. “And he can throw the ball. He’ll be all right. They’ll go past that and forget about it next week.”
Coach Lovie Smith seemed as though he already was past it in his post-practice news conference Monday.
“We like Jay being our quarterback,” Smith said. “He’s one of our guys, and he’s going to help us win a lot of games.”
Moore was asked if he thought Cutler should talk to the team, but he said that, while the quarterback’s outspokenness is just part of his demeanor, a speech to the team isn’t.
“I think it’s just him,” Moore said of Cutler’s fiery approach. “That’s the type of guy he is. He’s not going to hold anything back. If he was to talk to the team, I guess you would kind of feel weird about it because it’s really just not his thing.”
Smith declined to say if Cutler and Webb had spoken, but he said their incident was nothing out of the ordinary.
“There are a lot of other things I was more concerned about in that game,” Smith said. “Our play. Things go on always that you guys (media) don’t see. You had a chance to see something that was unfortunate. It’s no more than that.”
Asked if Cutler’s criticism of the O-line was warranted, Smith hedged.
“As far as the criticism, I am criticizing all of us,” he said. “That’s what I’m focusing in on. We didn’t do enough. So don’t try to take it to one guy. It was all of us.
“You are justified in criticizing our play — no more than that. After Game 2, you are. Let’s wait for Game 3 and see where we are. Fair enough?”
Right tackle Gabe Carimi was there for the Cutler-Webb contact, which was more of an elbow than a shove.
“I didn’t realize how small the push was to me,” Carimi said. “I didn’t notice anything on the sideline. It gets just blown up. Everything’s recorded. We were all just trying to win a game, so we didn’t even recognize it. I think we’re going to move on, and we’ll be fine.”
Center Roberto Garza, a 12-year veteran and the leader of the line, had no interest in rehashing the incident.
“What happened last week, it happened,” Garza said. “Now we’re moving on and focusing on the Rams and what we need to do to win the football game.”
rlegere@dailyherald.com