Dungy Calls Jay Cutler "A Risk"

In Dungy's world, Michael Vick is less risky than Jay Cutler

By EAMONN BRENNAN

Updated 3:33 PM EDT, Thu, Jun 4, 2009

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It hasn't taken long for Tony Dungy, whose titled his memoir "Quiet Strength," to make noise in the NFL analytic community. It was just the other day Dungy was announced as one of NBC's newest football analysts. Already, Dungy's starting to not make very much sense at all.

What are we talking about? This quote, in which Dungy calls the Bears' trade for Jay Cutler "a risk," says the Bears traded for Cutler because they're so concerned with beating the Packers, and infers that Cutler doens't have the leadership skills to be a good NFL quarterback. Oh boy:

"We'll see about his maturity level. That's what I would question. And some of the things that happened leading to him leaving Denver ... that would concern me as a head coach," Dungy added, according to the report. "He can make all of the throws, but quarterbacking is much more than just making throws."

No one denies that quarterbacking requires leadership, but it's also pretty hard to be a leader if you can't play the position well. Was Kyle Orton's leadership enough to compensate for his limited ability? Obviously not. Ability comes first, intangibles second. By trading for Cutler, the Bears finally got that math right.

Here's the real kicker, though. Dungy has these obvious concerns about Cutler, whose main negatives appear to be rumors about his attitude in Denver, but not about Michael Vick, who was convicted and incarcerated for murdering and raping small animals. See if this adds up:

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“[Michael Vick] deserves a second chance and could be very inspiring to young people who make a mistake. … I would definitely give him an opportunity if I needed a quarterback. I wouldn’t be afraid of his past.”

Under normal pretenses, that'd be a perfectly fine thing to say. Vick probably does deserve a second chance. But if you're expressing doubts about a talented quarterback's maturity level on one hand, while on the other hand advocating for people to forget Vick's past when they consider signing him, well, what's the word here? Hypocritical? That's a start.

Perhaps the Bears should have saved their draft picks and signed Vick instead. Much less risky, eh Tony?

Eamonn Brennan is a Chicago-based writer, editor and blogger. You can also read him at Yahoo! Sports, Mouthpiece Sports Blog, and Inside The Hall, or at his personal site, eamonnbrennan.com. Follow him on Twitter.