Former Bears QB Jay Cutler to sign deal with Dolphins

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Jay Cutler was cut by the Bears in March. (AP)

Jay Cutler’s not retiring after all.

The former Bears quarterback will sign with the Dolphins for one year, sources told the Sun-Times. He will reunite with former Bears offensive coordinator Adam Gase, who coached Cutler to perhaps his best season in 2015.

Cutler, who had agreed to serve as a Fox color analyst this offseason, was in sudden demand when Dolphins quarterback Ryan Tannehill injured his left knee during Thursday’s practice. The team has yet to make a public pronouncement about whether Tannehill will need season-ending surgery.

Cutler knows Gase’s system and has a strong relationship with the coach. He’s one of the quarterback’s best friends in the business, and the two share a mutual respect.

The Bears cut Cutler in March after eight seasons. He was recovering from shoulder surgery at the time, and did not get any immediate offers to start elsewhere in the league. The Jets showed a passing interest, but eventually settled on another former Bears quarterback, Josh McCown.

“I guess I just don’t get it,” Gase told the Sun-Times at the NFL owners meetings in late March. “I think he has a lot to offer a team. I think he’s a starting quarterback in the NFL. …

“My experience with him was very good. I guess I just don’t get all the hatred towards him.”

Cutler has never served as a backup in the NFL. He likely won’t in Miami, either, if Tannehill’s injury proves as serious as the team fears.

Gase posited in March that backup duty might have made for a tough sell.

“I think it’s not as easy as people would think it’d be, when you’ve been a starter your entire career and all of a sudden be like, ‘OK, I’m just going to be a backup,’” Gase said. “It’s just going to have to be something — if that’s a role that in his mind that’s what he wanted to do, he’d probably be good. But if that’s not where his mind’s at, I wouldn’t see him plugging into it.”

Friday, Bears guard Kyle Long mentioned Cutler’s connection to Gase when asked about the quarterback possibly taking a job.

“Obviously being with Gase here and having relative success and a good relationship there, you never know. …” he said. ”

“I just think ‘Goose’ does a great job of talking to the guys on his team. Having that open-door policy —you can walk in his office and talk about anything—you don’t feel like there’s any barrier up with him, which we do a great job with here, we have a lot of coaches like that. But especially as it pertains to Jay, I’d say that he and Goose get along really well.”Cutler was supposed to call the Bears’ third preseason game against the Titans and their home opener against the Falcons.

After Sunday, his television career will have to wait.


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