Defending Jay Cutler ...

I once had a conversation with another sportswriter when we discovered that we had a mutual friend.

"The thing about (name deleted)," the writer said, "is that trouble always seems to follow him around."

And so it goes with Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler. He suffered a knee injury in the first half of Sunday's NFC championship game against the Green Bay Packers, was ineffective and was taken out of the game early in the second half with the Bears trailing 14-0.

Third-stringer Caleb Hanie, inserted into the lineup when backup Todd Collins was injured, rallied the Bears to a pair of second-half touchdowns. The Bears lost 21-14 when Hanie was picked off deep in Green Bay territory in the final minute.

Hanie actually threw for three scores — unfortunately for the Bears, one of them was an interception that was run back for a touchdown by Green Bay defensive tackle B.J. Raji.

Even before the game ended, however, players and fans alike were ripping Cutler, essentially calling him gutless. Most surprising was that some of the criticism came from NFL players, mostly via their Twitter accounts.

Cutler's reputation isn't the best in the league, and he obviously has a way of ticking off guys around the NFL.

But reports came today that Cutler has at least a partially torn MCL, which is far from a minor injury. Teammates have rushed to his defense, as did coach Lovie Smith in a press conference earlier today. And the Bears' medical staff, it turns out, made the final call on Cutler's availability to play.

Cutler isn't a sympathetic figure, but he doesn't deserve this kind of treatment, especially from players around the NFL who live with the idea that a catastrophic injury can essentially end their careers at any time.

The criticism of Cutler, frankly, seems based more on his being unlikeable than anything else.