Rain fell Friday afternoon, and it was almost perfect.
It gave the Bears’ training camp at Olivet Nazarene even more of a Woodstock feel. If the rain had come down harder, a photographer might have gotten an iconic shot of mud-streaked fans grooving to the hissing sound of a Jay Cutler pass.
This is the Summer of Love, or the Summer of Jay, whichever you prefer. I have been in this line of work for more than 25 years and I never have seen anything quite like the ado over the Bears’ new quarterback. And I covered John Elway for eight seasons.
Such unconditional love for Cutler! But enough about the media coverage.
To be fair, I was not in Denver for Elway’s rookie season, when one newspaper ran a regular update that included what he ate each meal during training camp. I’m afraid I’ve just given sports editors in Chicago a new idea: J.C.’s Daily Bread.
Everybody seems to be giddy about Cutler. Radio interviews with him have turned into giggle-fests. Questions to other players about the quarterback start with, “How amazed are you by … ” I wish an athlete just once would respond to that sort of query with, “I’m about a half of 1 percent amazed” or “Not amazed at all; I’ve seen better.”
The reason for the enthusiasm surrounding Cutler is obvious. The Bears haven’t had a good quarterback in a long time. And his arm seems to be fitted with a hydraulic slingshot. But if I might be the fly in the Kool-Aid, let’s see what this guy can do in, you know, a real game before we crown him the next Peyton Manning.
“It’s real exciting,” wide receiver Brandon Rideau said. “We have a Pro Bowl quarterback in, so everybody in town is excited about it. We’re excited. We just want to make sure we can come in and live up to what we expect of ourselves.”
Over and over again, players, fans and media members have referred to Cutler as a Pro Bowl quarterback. If by saying he’s a Pro Bowl quarterback you mean he has gone to one Pro Bowl, then, yes, he’s a Pro Bowl quarterback. That makes Marty Booker a Pro Bowl wide receiver because he was selected for the game in 2002.
Thousands of fans stood in the rain Friday and oohed and aahed as Cutler completed passes to receivers who were running routes without defenders. When the defense did get on the field, Rideau made some nice catches. That immediately raised his stock to somewhere in the Jerry Rice stratus.
The assumption, apparently, is that Cutler is so good he’s going to make all the receivers around him good too. That must have been general manager Jerry Angelo’s thinking because he didn’t land any veteran wide receivers in the off-season.
Unless Cutler cures cancer and gets “Jon&Kate Plus 8” canceled, I don’t see how he possibly can live up to the hype.
Some of the gushing is because of the inevitable excitement that comes with change. We have seen it before with coaching changes. The new coach is the breath of fresh air who invigorates everything. The former coach could siphon the fun out of a grammar-school snow day. That’s how it works. Thus, Cutler now is the embodiment of all that is good in the world, at least in Chicago.
And he has gotten into the comparison game, telling WMVP-AM last week that Bears fans are better than Broncos fans.
“It’s a lot [different],” he said. “Denver’s like a 6 and Chicago’s like a 9. It’s quite a bit different. Just the fans and how passionate they are, that’s probably the biggest difference.”
Somebody needs to put an arm around Cutler and tell him that, according to the Broncos’ Web site, the waiting list for their season tickets has 28,000 names on it and that the estimated wait is 13 to 15 years.
The Broncos struggled down the stretch last season, losing their last three games when all they needed was one victory to earn a playoff berth. Cutler did not play well in those games. But that was last year, and Da Coach said living in the past is for cowards, gang.
The present, at least here in Bourbonnais, is so shiny, it’s hardly recognizable. Caught up as I am in Cutler Mania, I have the Bears improving by one victory to 10-6 this year. But wait a second. Some experts are picking them to go 8-8. Does this make me Mr. Positive? I think it does.
In any case, Bears players are excited too.
“He’s an amazing quarterback,” center Olin Kreutz said. “He opens up the offense. … The defense doesn’t know where the ball is going. Sometimes we don’t know where the ball is going.”
We don’t know where the hype is going either.
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rmorrissey@tribune.com
