Lovie Smith, head coach of the Chicago Bears, pretended to be having a conversation via his radio headset with defensive coordinator upstairs in the coaches’ booth Sunday afternoon, rather than have to speak to quarterback Jay Cutler, witnesses confirmed Thursday.
“Yeah, Rod, I’m, uh, I’m thinking blitz on this play here,” Smith said into his radio headset as Cutler approached, despite the fact that defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli had stepped out to the men’s room moments earlier. ”We… um… we should send the corner from the outside, have the safeties cheat up and oh good he’s gone.”
“Jays a nice guy and all,” Smith later said, referring to the incident. “I hate to deceive him like that. But he just always wants to talk about feelings, and darkness, and the inevitability of death, or whatever. I just wasn’t in the mood.”
Cutler’s brooding ways and overall lack of social awareness has made him an outcast at times in the Bears locker room.
“Yeah, he’s kind of a downer,” confirmed RB Matt Forte. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the guy smile. Definitely not someone you want to get stuck in a conversation with on the sideline. Every time I see him coming, I act like I just heard one of the tight ends calling me, or something. Otherwise, he’ll keep asking me to listen to his poetry for the entire game.”
When questioned about the situation, Cutler launched into a rambling, twenty-minute speech about loneliness and despair and the pain of knowing that no one can possibly understand how utterly alone he feels in he universe, until reporters pretended that their iPhones had just vibrated, and they really needed to take this call.
