What was Jay Cutler like in Chicago? Ask his backup QBs (2024)

When Jason Campbell showed up to the quarterback meeting room at Halas Hall in 2012, he had to prepare for an interrogation from Jay Cutler.

The topic? Campbell’s dating life.

This would be a regular occurrence. For 20 minutes, Cutler would go through 10 questions. It started simple, “What’d you do yesterday? Where did you eat?” And then, “Did you go on a date?”

Cutler would try to set Campbell up on blind dates, too, and along with Josh McCown, the two would live vicariously through Campbell.

“Jay was funny, man,” Campbell said. “They basically couldn’t wait every morning to just ask me about my single life.

“Things got really interesting because if anyone could be a fly on the wall during the first 20 minutes of quarterback meetings, they’d think, ‘What in the world are y’all guys talking about?’”

From 2009-16, Cutler set new Bears quarterback records — attempts, completions passing yards and touchdowns. Only Sid Luckman played more games in a Bears uniform at quarterback than Cutler’s 102. For eight seasons, Cutler was the talk of the town, for better or worse.

Eight seasons means a slew of backups, and Cutler’s injuries meant that in the eight-year stretch, seven of them started games.

What was it like playing second fiddle to the most polarizing athlete in town? Seven of Cutler’s former backups who spoke toThe Athletic all maintained that what fans saw on TV or during his conferences with the media wasn’t the quarterback they got to know. Other teammates or coaches of Cutler certainly may differ, but those who held the clipboard on the sideline or watched film with him during the week remember him quite fondly.

“He’s a legend,” Matt Barkley said, “in his own unique way.”

McCown, who became close friends with Cutler, remembered those chats about Campbell’s single life being more than just Cutler’s sense of humor.

“He would ask about Jason, we would laugh about that,” McCown said, “but I think he genuinely cared about Jason’s life.”

When quarterbacks arrived in Chicago, they could do their own research on Cutler. A few Google searches might make anyone a little leery about their new teammate.

“When I first signed there, I thought, ‘OK, this may be interesting,’” Campbell said.

Caleb Hanie was the first quarterback to work with Cutler in 2009 after the Kyle Orton trade. They met in the weight room and immediately hit it off. Then Hanie got to benefit from the “Summer of Cutler” in Chicago.

“You’re just riding the coattails around Chicago to all the cool events — baseball games and hockey games,” he said. “He’s getting the royal treatment because he’s the first Pro Bowl quarterback we had in a while.”

Todd Collins entered the NFL in 1995, and 15 years later he joined the Bears for his final season.

“He was kind of different,” Collins said. “Quiet at first. Real quiet at first. Kind of tough to really get to know. But then as the weeks went by, (he) kind of grew more comfortable and opened up a little bit.”

McCown had been in the league for nine years already and had worked alongside plenty of quarterbacks before arriving in Chicago late in the 2011 season.

“I probably had the perception that everybody had of him, but one thing I try to practice throughout my career was, everybody’s got a perception of what people think of him, but you’ve got to get to know people for yourself,” McCown said.

Making his return to the NFL after being a high school coach, McCown came to Chicago “with such a different mindset and a gratitude for the whole process.” He said that allowed him to see Cutler differently.

“Had I not had that perspective, I probably wouldn’t have the friend I have now in Jay,” he said. “I’m very thankful for that. It was a special time.”

Campbell benefitted from being a veteran as well. He had respect in the locker room for being a starter previously, and that helped the rapport with Cutler.

“I heard all the things about him as far as the attitude and the things they used to say about him,” Campbell said. “I didn’t know what I was walking into, honestly. When I walked in there, he was cool.”

For some, the fact that Cutler was such a talent superseded anything they might see about his body language or issues in Denver.

“To that point in my career, I had not been around somebody who could throw the football that well,” McCown said. “I was just excited to be around him.”

Jimmy Clausen’s brothers played at Tennessee, so he watched Cutler play at Vanderbilt. His first impression? “Gunslinger. Had a rifle of an arm.”

In 2014, after McCown went to the Buccaneers in free agency, the Bears signed Clausen to be Cutler’s backup. When Clausen got to Halas Hall, Cutler took him to lunch to welcome him to the team.

“Once I got to Chicago, he was really amazing,” Clausen said. “He was great to have. It was awesome to be a backup for him. Awesome. People might say differently, but if you know Jay, Jay treats you unbelievably.”

In 2016, Barkley signed with the Bears’ practice squad before eventually being Cutler’s backup, then taking over when Cutler got hurt. His offensive coordinator at USC his freshman year was Jeremy Bates, so Barkley watched plenty of cut-ups of the 2007-08 Broncos offense.

He knew the talent, but he also knew what had been said — and posted on social media — about Cutler.

“I had heard and seen the memes of all the negativity, I guess,” he said, “but getting there in person and getting to know him … it completely changed my mindset of how I viewed him because of how much I could tell he loved the game, how much he loved his teammates.

“Yeah, he was an asshole at times, but I mean, his approach to studying and knowing the offense and putting plays in and being a commander, he was legit.”

Unlike the aforementioned veterans, Matt Blanchard had a different point of view. He played high school football in nearby Lake Zurich. He knew the Bears’ history of quarterbacks well. He joined the franchise as an undrafted rookie in 2012, wide-eyed.

“I didn’t have a perception really at all going into it,” Blanchard said. “Jay, in my mind, was an elite quarterback.

“I was really curious to meet him. When I first got in the room, Jay had a presence and command of the quarterback room and, obviously, he was a Pro Bowl quarterback at that time. My perception was, ‘OK, how can I learn as much as I possibly can from this individual?'”

On Christmas night 2011, McCown started for the Bears at Lambeau Field. They were trailing 35-10 in the second half when McCown threw a touchdown pass to Kellen Davis.

Following the score, McCown took it in for a two-point conversion on a quarterback draw. He immediately dunked the ball through the goalposts.

“I mean, I had been coaching high school football the previous 10 weeks, so I don’t know if I’m ever going to be on an NFL field again,” McCown said. “I’m on Lambeau Field on Christmas night.”

When he got to the sideline, Cutler awaited him. The two didn’t know each other too well at that point because Cutler had been in Colorado getting thumb surgery. It was one of their first exchanges.

“What was that?” Cutler asked. McCown noted there “might’ve been some colorful language in between.”

“What’s up, man?” McCown responded. “Was that not high enough?”

Cutler said, “We’re down (17), and you just dunked on a two-point conversion.”

Said McCown: “It was Jay. He was serious. He made me feel bad. But at the same time, we laughed and it was good. I’ll never forget that. We still laugh about that to this day.”

Nearly five years to the day later, Barkley threw a third-and-8 pass to Cameron Meredith against Washington on the afternoon of Christmas Eve.

“I freakin’ ripped it,” Barkley said. “It was a missile.”

When Barkley got to the sideline and looked at the pictures of the play, Cutler walked over in his jacket. He gave Barkley an unforgettable stare.

“Kind of like, ‘You idiot. What were you thinking? Don’t ever do that again. It’s not going to work out well for you,’” Barkley said. “That kind of thing. I remember kind of laughing to myself because of all the throws I’ve seen him shove in there. Some of them work, some of them don’t. At the end of the day, you learn what your limits are. I just remember that face, that classic face, just staring at you.”

In 2012, Campbell started against the 49ers on a Monday night, filling in for Cutler, who was out with a concussion. It was a night to forget for Campbell; he threw for only 107 yards and two picks. The Bears lost, 32-7.

Three years earlier, Cutler got picked off five times in a loss to the 49ers. When Campbell got back to the meeting room the day after the game, Cutler quipped, “You got a little bit of a taste of what I got.”

Campbell responded, “Shoot, man. We got annihilated out there.”

That version of Cutler is what Campbell hoped the public could see.

“Jay can sometimes be stubborn,” Campbell said. “I don’t think he really gave the people the opportunity to get to know him. When I was in the meeting room with him, he’s funny. He says off-the-wall stuff to get the room lightened up. I’d be like, ‘Dude, why don’t you show this to the public? Why don’t you show this more with your other teammates?’ He just came off as kind of standoffish to a lot of the fan base and the city.

“If he had been more personable and showed a little bit more of the character that I was seeing in the meeting rooms, if he got a chance to show that publicly, he would’ve had a chance to win some people over.”

Having grown up down the road from Halas Hall, Blanchard often heard from friends and family wanting to know how Cutler really was.

“The perception from the public view was that he’s X, it just didn’t match with the reality of who he is as a human being,” he said.

Clausen understood what Cutler dealt with coming off his own high-profile tenure at Notre Dame. That helped him relate to his new teammate.

“I was a bigger deal at Notre Dame and in high school than I ever was in the pros,” Clausen said. “It’s difficult to let people in that you don’t really know that well because you don’t know if there’s an agenda for that person. I’m very similar to Jay in that aspect that I’m very reserved until I get to know somebody. … Until you got to know Jay Cutler, until he trusts you, you’re not gonna really see who that person is.”

Barkley had been in the league for three seasons before joining Cutler in Chicago. He wound up being Cutler’s final backup as a Bear.

“When I first got there, perception changed immediately,” Barkley said. “Seeing how much he really loved ball. He’s such a smart person, such a smart quarterback, he just gets it. Unfortunately, he didn’t care what people think about his persona or about his image and he would do whatever he needed to do or whatever he thought was right. But at the end of the day, he was playing every game to win, and from what I saw when I was there with him, he was a gamer.”

The juxtaposition between the Cutler narrative and what his backups thought of him was never more apparent than in the NFC Championship Game against the Packers on Jan. 23, 2011, when Cutler left with a knee injury early in the second half. No one saw the injury, which Cutler suffered quietly in the first half and tried to play through, and the team fumbled in not explaining it in real time.

That game took place more than a year before Campbell arrived, but he knew about it —the aftermath, the criticism, what it did to Cutler’s reputation (and still does today).

“A lot of guys said they felt like he gave up on them and stuff like that,” Campbell said. “I know that bothered him a little. When I got there, you could feel that little bit of tension where guys feel like he checked out or whatever, and he’s like, ‘Man, that’s not how it went down.’”

The memorable images from that game are Cutler sulking in a giant Bears overcoat or on the stationary bike — not so much the ones of him helping his fellow quarterbacks.

“The NFC Championship Game, he was helping me out on the sideline before I got to the bench,” Hanie said. “The cameras are on him at the wrong time. It’s like, come on, you know? Anyone else out there to say he quit on us, they’re just wrong, plain and simple. They’re just wrong about it. Dude had a torn MCL. He gave it a go on the first drive of the third quarter — dude couldn’t plant on his leg.”

For the backlash that came from the loss to the Packers to irk Cutler is noteworthy in itself. He threw the football in a way that matched his personality.

“I thought he played the game from the standpoint of not really worrying about what people say or don’t say,” Campbell said. “I think when you play that position, you need some of that. … As a person, he was hilarious. As a football player, he had that mentality: ‘I don’t care what anybody says. I’m gonna play the way I play, the way I know how to play.’”

Hanie spent three years with the Bears and currently works in south suburban Palos Park, Ill. He gets asked about Cutler often.

“What I just tell people is that Jay is a different guy,” Hanie said. “He was always really good to me. He was a good friend of mine. Of course he had times when he was grumpy and he was a little salty toward the media and certain fans.

“He was always good with kids and good with kids as fans, but when it came to adult fans, he just didn’t have much patience with them. That can come off as, like, grumpy and salty, I guess. I knew who he was and how he felt about his teammates and everything else, and he always was a good friend to me.”

Clausen could have had an awkward moment with Cutler in December 2014. Halas Hall became a circus, as Bears offensive coordinator Aaron Kromer had apologized to the offense for leaking info to NFL Network about Cutler, and then in a Hail Mary attempt to save face in an awful year, coach Marc Trestman benched Cutler for Clausen.

With job security and a high salary, Cutler handled it well publicly — and he was the same way behind the scenes with Clausen.

“He would stay late after practice to help me out, watch film along with David Fales,” Clausen said. “He was very, very helpful. That’s just who he is. No one saw that, because no one sees what happens behind closed doors, but that’s Jay. If Jay knows you and trusts you, then you’re like family to him. Unless you’re in that inner circle, it’s a different story.”

Blanchard left the Bears in 2013 and joined Carolina. In the 2014 preseason, the Panthers played the Bills and Blanchard was 1-of-7 passing with an interception.

With the Bears playing the Bills in Week 1, Cutler happened to watch tape of that game. He sent Blanchard a text.

“I can’t remember the exact message, but the sentiment of the message was, ‘Hey, keep your head up. You can play. You’re a good quarterback,’” Blanchard said. “It was an encouraging message that he didn’t have to send.”

No relationship between Cutler and his backup made less sense to the outside world as the bond he formed with McCown. There was Cutler, seen as prickly and off-putting. Then there was McCown, maybe one of the most well-liked NFL players ever.

There could’ve been tension in 2013, when McCown had the best stretch of his career while Cutler was hurt, with fans in town calling for McCown to take over or even be the starting quarterback the franchise chose heading into 2014.

But to McCown, that season became something he would try to recreate in quarterback rooms the rest of his career.

“Other than dealing with his injury, Jay didn’t miss a beat as far as helping me,” McCown said. “So everything I was doing for him, whether it was studying the plays on a Monday or Tuesday night — we spent so much time together — and it just flipped. He was helping me. I don’t know that he gets enough credit for that. When you experience that behind closed doors, your view of the guy is different. He was awesome for me.”

McCown was awarded the prestigious Brian Piccolo Award following the 2013 season. Already with Tampa, he wasn’t in town to receive it, but Cutler accepted it on his behalf and the room was floored hearing his comments about his former backup.

“It’s impossible to replace a person like Josh McCown,” Cutler said. “I couldn’t be happier for him in his next journey down in Tampa. There isn’t a more deserving player in the league this past year than Josh McCown.

“My only regret is that I would have met him earlier in life. … It’s rare to find a teammate that makes you not only a better player but also a better person.”

While that speech was surprising to some, it perfectly illustrated the relationship Cutler had with McCown, who accepted Jay for who he was.

“The genuineness of who he was all the time is, when you’re behind closed doors with him, is what makes him special because you know you’re getting the same guy every time,” McCown said. “He’s fiercely loyal and honest and I think a very caring person to the group in his circle. I’m thankful to call him a friend.”

(Graphic: Wes McCabe / The Athletic with Getty Images)