Criticism of Cutler boggles his mind

Q. What do you make of all the Cutler hate and hoopla?

A. It boggles my mind that people are saying that he’s not tough enough or “I played on this,” or “I played in junior high when I was on a bad knee.”

If he’s not healthy enough to make the plays and the training staff and the doctors who are with these guys day in and day out say he isn’t ... they’ve got a doctor on staff who all he does is diagnose and train and repair knees. If he felt that Jay didn’t show enough at halftime, then he can’t be the guy. Then they have to go to the next guy.

He didn’t play well in the first half. Now you’re hearing that he didn’t encourage guys on the sidelines or his demeanor.

It’s crazy. I heard someone say he better be on an operating table (Monday). No he doesn’t. He’s having an MRI (Monday).

It’s really unfortunate that the way this team played this year that this is going to be the dominating topic for probably the next two weeks. It’s not going to be about Bear football, it’s just going to be about Jay Cutler and that’s unfortunate.

Q. How about the job Caleb Hanie did out there?

A. You’re going to be questioning the coaching staff a little about why is Todd Collins your second guy?

Caleb looked very comfortable. He looked like he belonged, and I’ve always been of the opinion that’s the biggest compliment you can give a backup guy.

For a guy who got zero reps during the season, he went out there and showed what you can do when you’re a professional and care about your craft.

Q. How about the play of the defense?

A. What they were able to do to Aaron Rodgers — pick him off a couple of times and make him look, at times, mortal. The defense settled in after a tough start.

To hold him to no TD passes and a 55 quarterback rating, that’s pretty darn good considering how well he was playing coming into the game.

Q. How would you sum up the Bears’ season?

A. I’ve been doing analysis for the Bears for 10 years since I retired, and this has been far and away the most fun year. Watching the team progress has been fun. This team got better just about every week.

Had anybody predicted they would be hosting the NFC championship game at Soldier Field I think they probably would have been laughed at.

The majority of the people had this coaching staff being fired at the end of the season and now you’re looking at one of the better coaching staffs in the NFL. You have top tip your hat to what they were able to do.