Jay Cutler – October 11, 2017
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Wednesday, October 11, 2017
QB Jay Cutler
(So you’ve been taking a lot of hits lately. How is the body holding up?) – “Good. Good. My kids gave me a little bit of a cold, a little cold over the weekend. Other than that, my body feels alright. If I stay away from that I think I’ll be good.”
(How long does it take you to recover from…?) – “Not that bad. I think not doing OTAs and not doing a lot of that other stuff, my body is, I mean it’s still pretty fresh. That stuff, I think once you get above 30 (years old), those days, even though they’re kind of low impact, start adding up. Your body is so twisted up. So I feel good. I feel good right now.”
(I know you think about the opposing defense but the Atlanta Falcons score a lot of points and so do you feel like ‘Hey, we’ve got to do more than just…’?) – “We’ve felt like that for three weeks, four weeks now. We’ve got to figure it out. Whether we’re playing the team that doesn’t score a high amount of points like Atlanta does or not, we’ve got to do our part. Defensively, those guys, I’m sure they are getting a little frustrated. They’re playing really good ball and we’ve got to at least match their level.”
(How do you rally the offense?) – “I think we did a good job today. I think (Head Coach) Adam (Gase) did a job talking to the team the last couple of days. We’ve just got to go back to work. I mean that’s all we can do. We can’t magically think that this is just going to turn around just because we come in and we practice and we play games. There’s got to be a focus there. There’s got to be energy. There’s got to be a sense of urgency for us offensively, to do things the way we’re coached to do, and go out there and get better each day.”
(There’s been a lot of talk about the execution. Can you see in practice some signs that the execution is getting better from everybody?) – “Yes, I mean think we do a good job at practice. We’ve just got to carry it over to games. I think we’ve probably had one bad day that I can think of the last four weeks – a practice offensively. Guys are doing what we have to do. We just have to be more consistent. That’s what drives are all about is putting together six plays, seven plays, eight plays in a row, and that’s how you’re going to propel the ball down the field. If we’re one play here and there, a really bad play, we’re second-and-10, we’re third-and-10, we’re third-and-15, that’s not how you play winning football on the offensive side.”
(I know this is obviously something that you guys as an offense never want to have to count on, but going back to the Tennessee game, to see how well the defense was playing to keep you guys in it, how much confidence can that give you for the fourth quarter?) – “It’s great. Like you said, it’s two-fold though. Offensively, we’d like to be clicking and we’d like to be putting up points; but knowing that they’re going to keep us in there and they’re going to work with us as we kind of fight through this tough spot, it’s good.”
(Have you, during this process at all, it would be human nature, at least I would think; but tell me if you feel differently, to wonder why do I need this aggravation?) – “(Laughter).”
(Has that thought come to mind at all?) – “I think that if you do this for 12 years, that’s just how the NFL goes. It’s never as good as you think it is, it’s never as bad as you think it is and looking at the film from Sunday, you walk away from the game and you feel like you lost on the offensive side of the ball; but there’s a lot of good stuff that happened that we can take away. I think that’s the course of the season. You’ve just got to keep riding the waves and know there’s going to be ups and downs and just try to be as consistent as you can.”
(Are you having fun?) – “I am. I am having fun. It’s a really good locker room, a good coaching staff, great organization. They do anything under the sun to make you a successful football player. There’s a lot of bright sides of being here, and at the end of the day we’re 2-2. We’re still in a good position and we’ve got to feel good about that. Like we were talking about earlier, we’ve just got to be more consistent. We’ve just got to go back to work, do everything right, do everything the right way on and off the field, and if we keep doing that, it’s going to come together.”
(This may sound like a dumb question but I’m going to ask it anyway because I don’t care about that. So you are 2-2. Do you have to keep reminding yourself of that because the…?) – “The perception, yes. I mean the perception, there’s a lot of noise that would lead you believe otherwise; but we are 2-2 and we’ve got to know that. I think offensively, if we can’t get it together, it could go the other way pretty quickly; but there’s a lot of football left. There’s a whole three quarters for us to go out there and figure things out and play better ball.”
(How tough is it to establish the footwork you want when you’re being chased on those plays?) – “I mean you can figure that out. (laughter)”
(I mean is that something which you look at?) – “Yes, it’s something that you’ve just got to always fight. You’ve always got to fight that and just trust that those guys are going to give you a good pocket, set the edge and let you work in there. So it’s that constant battle of when to leave, when to stay.”
(TE Julius Thomas is a big target. He was brought here to help particularly in the red zone. How do you get him more involved?) – “We’ve got to get in the red zone more. I think that would be our first step. We haven’t had a lot of opportunities down there so we haven’t been able to showcase him. If we get down there more often, we’ll get more opportunities.”
(Have you worked much with WR Jakeem Grant? Obviously the throw to him at the goal line last week. What could he bring? And does that chemistry feel like it’s starting to develop at practice?) – “Yes. He has huge potential there. He’s so fast. He gets DBs on their heels. He’s able to get in and out of cuts. I mean just watching him on film and seeing him get open, it puts a lot of confidence in me that if we get in a spot like that, he’s going to make plays for us. We’ve just got to keep – like all of these guys – if you look at our offensive games, we just haven’t had a lot of plays. We haven’t had a lot of opportunities in the red zone. We’ve had very few third downs because we’re three-and-out so much. We haven’t been able to put together a big pamphlet of plays for us to examine and go over. It’s only going to get better if we’re on the field more.”
(Head Coach Adam Gase said he saw a little sign of improvement from the offensive line in the fourth quarter – more grit, push, finishing. Have you sensed the same thing?) – “Yes. I think whenever you look at the first three quarters and we’re fighting uphill and it’s not going very well, but whenever we needed a touchdown, whenever we needed to make some plays, the guys fought. The offensive line did their job and we made some plays on the outside and we ran the ball. We were able to go down there and push one in. I think that says a lot about this team. It’s, like Adam (Gase) said, it’s a gritty team. It’s a team that’s not going to give up. They’re going to fight until the end.”
(What about the Falcons defense. What are the challenges there?) – “A lot of speed. A lot of length. I don’t think they play a huge amount of coverages. (Atlanta Falcons Head Coach Dan) Quinn coming from Seattle, they have that mindset; but the coverages they play, they play them really, really well. You’re talking about a Super Bowl team. They know how to win games, the offensive side and defensive side.”
