In early 2011, Bears quarterback Jay Cutler absorbed plenty of criticism after tapping out of the NFC title game with a knee injury. The naysayers were legitimized by Jaguars running back Maurice Jones-Drew, who openly questioned Cutler’s toughness on Twitter.
Said Jones-Drew at the time: “All I’m saying is that he can finish the game on a hurt knee… I played the whole season on one.”
Now, as the Jaguars and Bears prepare to meet for the first time since that incident, Jones-Drew is tiptoeing around the Twitter topic.
“I think I explained that enough two years ago,” Jones-Drew said Wednesday, via ESPNChicago.com. “I really don’t want to get into that.”
The two men still haven’t talked about the issue. “I never got a chance to work it out with him,” Jones-Drew said. “That was two years ago. I’m just happy that he’s smiling. You know for a while he wasn’t smiling during the year and you always want to see players having fun and enjoying the game. So it’s good to see him smile.”
Cutler doesn’t expect to exchange smiles or anything else with Jones-Drew on Sunday.
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Cutler said.
Indeed there isn’t. In August 2011, Jones-Drew said there’s nothing for which to apologize.
“I don’t regret anything I do,” Jones-Drew said at the time. “You think about everything you put out there. I’m not going to be one of those guys to say, ‘I shouldn’t have done it.’ Because I did it. I knew what I was doing when I tweeted it. I just didn’t know that many people were following me at the time. . . . I wouldn’t apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong, I don’t think. I didn’t commit a crime. I didn’t kill anyone or rape anyone or anything like that. I mean, I stated my opinion, and it seems like you get more backlash for that than committing a real crime in some sense. I feel like I didn’t do anything wrong, I just said what everybody else was thinking.”
We’re thinking that at some point before Sunday’s game ends someone will be saying something more about this issue.