Bizarre controversy fitting end to bizarre Bears season

A Bears season that began with the Calvin Johnson catch that wasn’t was destined from the start to end in the most unusual of ways.

So the strange campaign concluded, fittingly, with one of the oddest playoff losses in team history and an even more bizarre quarterback controversy.

Just not the kind we’re accustomed to in Chicago.

No, it wasn’t Jay Cutler vs. Caleb Hanie, which would be laughable enough after the Packers defeated the Bears 21-14 Sunday at Soldier Field.

This took on a special kind of idiocy around Chicago and the league, where average folks and NFL players were accusing Cutler of shutting it down and faking a knee injury.

“Who said that? Who the (bleep) said that?” snapped an angry Brian Urlacher. “Some players sitting at home watching the championship game on their couch?”

Yeah, you have to be some kind of a moron to charge Cutler with something like that.

It is the ultimate accusation in sports, to say a player would feign injury while his teammates fight to the finish.

It’s also very dangerous to suggest you know what’s occurring in another person’s body.

But in the world of Twitter, there was no shortage of dopes both inside and outside the league claiming Cutler had quit on his team.

“I don’t give a (bleep) what they think,” Urlacher said. “The guy’s got a sprained MCL, or whatever it is, and they say that?

“He’s one of the toughest guys on our football team. He doesn’t (whine). He doesn’t complain when he gets hit. He goes out there and plays his (butt) off every Sunday and never misses practice.”

Cutler’s a lot of things, including — frequently — a jerk and less than perfect teammate. He also gives away games with dumb throws and is someone who probably doesn’t devote himself enough to his craft, certainly not on par with the greats of the NFL.

And it’s absolutely fair to wonder if Cutler will ever care enough about being great or to be more than what he is now, an average NFL quarterback who is some days great and other days terrible.

But it’s a Grand Canyon-sized leap from that to suggesting he doesn’t care about winning, and a hypothetical argument many miles from believing he would throw in the towel in the middle of the NFC title game.

Sorry, but it’s just plain stupid.

Cutler took an absolute beating this season behind the NFL’s worst offensive line, getting hit more than 130 times.

He got up every time, played a quarter with a concussion in the Giants game, and a quarter Sunday with a knee injury, hurting it late in the first quarter on a sack and then again late in the first half on another sack.

When he threw a pass early in the third quarter on a third-and-4, Cutler tried to plant but was unable to put pressure on the leg, firing a ball into the dirt in front of Matt Forte.

“I was going to keep playing,” Cutler said. “But they made the decision that giving Todd (Collins) a shot would be better.”

Head coach Lovie Smith said it wasn’t Cutler’s call.

“He was hurt and he couldn’t go,” Smith said. “Trainers, doctors and all, they are the ones who made that decision. Jay was disappointed he couldn’t go out and play to help his team win.”

And in truly shocking behavior for Smith, he came unglued and displayed actual emotion when questioned again about the Cutler injury.

“Hey, guys, he hurt his knee and he was out, all right? There’s nothing else for me to tell you on that,” Smith said. “I don’t know exactly when it happened. He couldn’t go, and we moved on. Let’s go to some other questions. How about that?”

Good idea.

How about using Collins as the No. 2 QB, wasting two valuable possessions in the third quarter when everyone in Chicago had seen enough of Collins in the Carolina game to know he couldn’t play?

“We thought Todd was the next guy that should be up and ready to go,” Smith insisted, all evidence to the contrary. “It’s not like there’s a big difference between the two. That’s why we went to Caleb fairly quick.”

How about skipping a 48-yard field goal try down 14-0 in the second quarter, before Brad Maynard punted into the end zone from the Green Bay 31?

“That was out of field-goal range for us,” Smith said of Robbie Gould, who was 3-for-4 this year from better than 50 yards. “It was out of our range to feel like we could make it.”

How about the playcalling on that series, which consisted of nothing but seven consecutive pass plays, in true Mike Martz meltdown fashion?

“We didn’t have any points in the first half, so we can’t feel good about it,” Smith said. “Our plan was to have Matt (Forte) more involved.”

There are so many more, like Smith’s timeout call that cost the Bears a first down on the last drive.

Or GM Jerry Angelo failing to deliver an offensive line (again), a wide receiving corps (again), and a veteran backup QB (again) that would have meant those two third-quarter series wouldn’t have been wasted before Hanie entered the game.

And there’s always the odd Devin Hester play, like the one on the Bears’ first possession when Hester stopped in the middle of a route, costing the Bears an easy TD, and causing Cutler to grab his helmet in disgust.

Yeah, there were a lot of questions to ask, and the answers were mostly bad after a disappointing playoff defeat.

But wondering if Jay Cutler quit on his team was about as foolish as it gets.

An appropriate ending to the long and strange trip this has been.