Jay Cutler Trying To Get Rid Of Ball Faster

Added on Sep 29, 2011 by Jack Thurman in

NFL

The struggles of the Chicago Bears offensive line are well documented and its starting to change the way that Jay Cutler plays quarterback. On Wednesday Cutler revealed to Chicago area sports media that the fear of being sacked is making him try to get rid of the ball faster. A quick release is good, but just getting rid of the ball for its own sake not necessarily a good thing.

Cutler has been sacked 14 times this season and is sounding a bit ‘shell shocked’:

“You talk to any quarterback. Whenever you’re getting a lot of pressure and you’re getting flushed, and you’re getting hit a lot, that clock in your head is gonna be tinkered a little bit. It’s gonna start ticking a little bit faster. Even sometimes when you do have a good amount of time, you’re gonna be feeling it even if it’s not there.”

Bears’ offensive coordinator Mike Martz isn’t particularly concerned:

“All quarterbacks go through that to some extent. Last year at this time, I was scared to death of our protections. We looked at the tape [from the Packers game]. He was very pleased with the protection. He’s very confident with where we’re going with that thing, and we all are.

“I think what happens is you lose your poise a little bit. We got to a point in the third quarter where we had a chance to get right back in it, and we lost our poise. You’ve got to fight through those things, get by it and learn from it. If we don’t learn, then you don’t get better. I would expect we’ll get a lot better.”

Cutler refused to throw his offensive line under the bus for the Bears’ bad showing against the Green Bay Packers:

“Whenever you’re losing games, there’s a little bit of a sense of panic and a sense of doom. We’ve just got to get over that. You’ve got to keep working. Every single person made a mistake at some point in that game (against the Packers). There’s a lot of football left. There’s a lot of things that can happen. We’re headed in the right direction. We’ve just got to hammer out the issues.”

The Bears step down in class this weekend as they face the Carolina Panthers. Chicago is a -6′ point NFL betting favorite with the total set at 43.