Imrem: With Jay Cutler, football won't be dull in Miami

The Dolphins signing Jay Cutler out of retirement Sunday reminds me of the Pistons hiring Doug Collins a generation ago.

The Bulls had fired Collins as head coach for a variety of reasons ranging from inside the arena to outside the arena.

The lead on my column about Collins going to Detroit went something like this:

If Doug Collins has changed, good luck to him; if he hasn't, good luck to the Pistons.

Sports are nothing if not a repetition of history.

So if Jay Cutler has changed, good luck to him; if he hasn't, good luck to the Dolphins.

Whatever Cutler was the past eight seasons with the Chicago Bears, he wasn't the kind of quarterback you win a Super Bowl with.

Cutler had a sullen personality and wayward arm. The former improved a bit late in his stay here, but the latter stayed pretty much the same.

Ah, but the Dolphins became desperate for a starting quarterback after Ryan Tannehill came up lame.

Let's see, Jay Cutler never knelt during the national anthem, Colin Kaepernick did … let's give $10 million to the former instead of the latter.

Just when, sad to say, I was looking forward to hearing Cutler analyze Bears games for FOX.

The Dolphins must consider Cutler a bargain considering starting NFL quarterbacks go for considerably more on the open market.

Let's focus on that development rather than the issue of why Cutler has an NFL job and Kaepernick doesn't.

The primary reason seems to be that Miami head coach Adam Gase has a relationship with Cutler going back to 2015 when Gase was the Bears' offensive coordinator.

So the Dolphins took a flyer on one of the most disappointing, frustrating, underachieving quarterbacks in NFL history.

Gase must be thinking what I thought for eight years: Cutler isn't an elite quarterback, but maybe he has one elite season buried deep inside him somewhere.

Players with lesser ability than Cutler — lesser arm strength, mobility and size — have quarterbacked teams to the Super Bowl.

Heck, John Fox — yes, that John Fox, your John Fox, Bears fans — coached Carolina to the championship game with Jake Delhomme playing the most important position on the field.

Double heck, one of the Harbaughs (John, I think) actually won a Super Bowl in Baltimore with Joe Flacco at quarterback.

Here's what must happen for Cutler to win the AFC East over the Patriots, much less the Super Bowl over the, uh, let's say the Bears just for the fun of it.

Defensive backs have to drop all those balls that Cutler throws into double coverage. And he has to stay healthy for a change. And he has to quit being such a downer.

Hey, it's possible, isn't it? The Cubs won a World Series, didn't they? Donald Trump is president, isn't he?

One thing is for sure: No matter how dull Cutler himself is, Dolphins football won't be.

Just look at the tweets usatoday.com repeated not long after the Dolphins-Cutler marriage was announced Sunday.

• “In a few weeks: ‘After losing the starting job to Matt Moore, Jay Cutler retires again.' ”

• “Finally Jay Cutler can carry on the Dan Marino tradition of winning zero Super Bowls in Miami.”

• And my favorite: “Even (Cutler's) retirement plans get intercepted.”

Regardless, good luck to everyone involved.

mimrem@dailyherald.com