Jay Cutler and the People Who Played the Game

Jay Cutler has a grade II MCL sprain. It forced him out of the NFC Championship Game on Sunday. It forced us to witness a lot of former NFL players accuse him of being weak, sissy, embarrassment who quit on his team. They were watching the game on television like the rest of us, but their opinion based on nothing was justified because they played the game. It’s one of my favorite lines of illogic. I played the game (or fought in the war, or had an abortion, or was adopted, or was raped, or lost a mother to cancer, or had a cat run over by an ice cream truck) so my opinion is better than yours. It sounds great, but it’s complete BS. If you fought in Afghanistan, you might be in a better position to make a better argument about the next steps the United States should take than I am, but you still have to make that better arguments. Simply having been there doesn’t make your opinion a good one. It still comes down to how well you support your conclusion. If you accuse someone of quitting because they look glum and you don’t like them, then your argument is weak and irresponsible regardless of how many downs you’ve played in the NFL. Being there is never a substitute for knowing what you’re talking about.