Reports were released today that the Tennessee Titans plan to clean house, firing head coach Mike Munchak and cutting ties with running back Chris Johnson. There’s also a chance they may move on from quarterback Jake Locker and interestingly replace him with Chicago Bears quarterback Jay Cutler.
via ESPN
They aren’t expected to pick up the $13 million option on Jake Locker’s contract for 2015 and likely will take aim at free-agent QB Jay Cutler.
“It’s my understanding that his first choice is to re-sign in Chicago, but there’s some serious doubts from both sides about whether that could happen,” Rapoport said. “When I brought up the Titans as a possibility for someone close to Jay Cutler — and make no mistake, Cutler is definitely on the Titans’ radar — what I was told is he would be very interested.”
Of course, Cutler played his college ball in Tennessee at Vanderbilt and still owns a home there, so there is a logical connection. In the end, both the Bears and Titans are at a crossroads with their respective quarterback situations and may have to make franchise-defining decisions this offseason.
The Bears could slap the franchise tag on Cutler, but they would have to convince themselves that the fragile quarterback would be worth that sort of a salary-cap hit for the next season. The major problem is that there won’t be any franchise-caliber quarterbacks on the free-agent market this offseason; so if the Bears let Cutler go, they likely will turn to the draft, which could push the team into a rebuilding mode.
