All this time we were trying to force Jay Cutler to be a great NFL quarterback, when really we should have been letting him fulfill his destiny as a perfect reality TV character. On his wife Kristin Cavallari’s reality show, Very Cavallari, Cutler uses his trademark quality of “not caring” to turn himself into one of the best comedic characters of 2018. Because it’s obviously completely necessary, from here on out we will be checking in on Jay Cutler’s non-antics on Very Cavallari, discussing his highlights and lowlights and best quotes, and handing out a weekly award for Jay Cutler’s Most Jay Cutler Moment. Let’s get to Week 8, the final installment of the season.
Jay Cutler, Public Relations Ninja
For not the first time on Very Cavallari, it was up to Jay Cutler to save the day. Kristin’s store, Uncommon James, was having its grand-opening celebration, during which Kristin was expected to give a speech. As it turns out, though, Kristin is afraid of public speaking. (Is it questionable that a person who has been a public figure for almost 15 years doesn’t like public speaking? Yes, but people contain multitudes and reality shows need plotlines, so let’s move on.) Throughout the party, Kristin came up with several excuses for ditching the speech, and that’s when Jay Cutler—a man of extreme emotional intelligence and decorum—stepped in.
“You need to thank everybody,” Jay (correctly) says. He then takes his nervous wife into a back room for a pep talk. “Let’s go,” he says, holding out his fist for a bump. “Rip the Band-Aid off.”
To close out this tour-de-force display of husbanding, Jay Cutler then tells everyone at the party to shut the hell up. “HEY, HEY, HEY!” he yells across a very crowded room. “PLEASE QUIT TALKING, EVERYBODY.” Jay is of course the first person Kristin thanks in her speech—she calls him “super dad”—and I’m pretty sure this is what it looks like when Jay Cutler is trying as hard as possible to fight back tears of joy:
Here’s the point: Doing Very Cavallari is quite possibly the best career decision Jay Cutler ever made. Before this show premiered in July, Cutler was a joke at worst and irrelevant at best. He was a low-grade laughingstock, a cautionary tale of unmet expectations. Now—at least in my mind—he’s one of the best personalities the NFL world has ever produced. Not only is he a legitimately funny person—because he’s quick and witty, but also because he’s been blessed with a down-home, aloof attitude that makes everything he does seem hilarious—but he’s also come off as a genuinely good person. He’s a simple man with few words and a mildly concerning obsession with deer cams, but he loves his wife and kids, and, in his own, unique way, he supports them all with an admirable level of devotion.
As the first season of Very Cavallari comes to an end (Season 2 in 2019, baby!!!), my main takeaway is that I’m truly glad to have gotten to know Jay Cutler better. I’m not afraid to say it: I now love, and am prepared to die for, Jay Cutler.
Jay Cutler, Also Known As …
We already know that one of Jay’s nicknames is “Les Mis,” but in the finale a second one emerges: “Green Thumb.” I guess Jay’s into gardening? I don’t know—most of this season focused on Jay Cutler endangering the lives of animals rather than plants—but I did find this:
Look at the size of those babies, and that hat. I hereby support “Green Thumb” as a nickname.
By the way, the Instagram account that posted that photo is a verified account titled “ifjayhadinstagram.” The description of the account is “I don’t have Instagram, but if I did … (Not run by Jay but someone really damn close).” That seems to point to Kristin as the person behind this account, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that Jay Cutler is being daft and that this account is run by him. Otherwise photo captions like “You see dirt. I see a soon-to-be food plot” and “They call me #SmokingJay” wouldn’t make sense. Either way, follow the account; it’s really fucking good:
Jay Cutler’s Quote of the Week
When literally everything goes wrong the morning of the Uncommon James home goods line launch, Kristin gets very angry at her employees, most of all because the turn of events means that she—the boss—will actually have to go into work. “Now I’m fired up,” Kristin says, which prompts Jay to get real excited. “Mmm,” he grunts, sipping on his morning coffee. “I like it. Get ’em. GET ’EM!” By this point he’s slamming his fist down on a table:
This is the man who once told Kristin that her best course of action in handling a work-related issue was to “just cut somebody’s head off.” He’s been trying to get an Uncommon James employee fired for the better part of the summer. It was amazing to see this plotline come full circle, and to see how excited he gets over the prospect of his wife firing someone. He must’ve been so disappointed when Kristin did not, in fact, cut somebody’s head off.
Jay Cutler’s Not Here for Your Dang Potty Mouth
Jay Cutler’s a family man, OK? He has kids; he’s not gallivanting around Nashville tossing out F-bombs and S-bombs. He doesn’t even want to hear you vaguely refer to sexual organs and/or sexual activity. If you say “pussy” around him while making a triangle sign with your hands, as Kristin did in the finale, he will make this face:
If you ask, “Do I have white stuff all over my face?,” as Kristin did in the finale, he will say, “Really?” and then look at you like you’re a child:
Keep it clean around my guy Jay Cutler, you heathens.
The Jay Cutler Fashion Corner
A couple of things here:
1. On their way to the new house, Kristin asks Jay, “What are your sunglasses?,” to which he replies:
“I’m not trying to win any contests of beauty,” he explains. Contests of beauty, mind you—not beauty contests. No, no: contests of beauty.
2. What is happening with this outfit?
What weather could have possibly necessitated this? He’s winter on top, spring in the middle, and summer on the bottom. Are there micro-micro-micro climates in Nashville that vary based on height from the ground? Jay, please explain yourself. And don’t even bother entering next year’s contest of beauty.
Jay Cutler Thinks You Need to Stop
The Most Jay Cutler Moment of the Week
At the end of the first episode of Very Cavallari, Kristin broached the subject of what Jay Cutler plans to do post-retirement, which prompted him to utter what is still the most iconic line of the show: “I’m not really looking to do a lot of work right now. I’m looking to do the exact opposite of that.”
The mark of a good TV show is character growth. Well, folks, I’d like to announce that Jay Cutler’s motivations have changed (kind of). In the finale, Kristin once again asks Jay what his plans are. This time, he has a list prepared:
- “Got a move I gotta finish up.”
- “Gotta, uh, get my garden going.”
- End of list.
So yes, Jay Cutler has gone from wanting to do “the exact opposite of work” to wanting to move and wanting to garden. Are those extremely short-sighted and not-at-all time-consuming plans? Sure. But after years of slingin’ that pigskin around, a guy’s gotta ease back into doing things that require any modicum of effort. “Don’t you think you’re gonna get bored?” Kristin asks.
“Hell yeah,” Jay responds. Words to live by, truly.
Goodbye for now, Jay Cutler. I will miss you as much as you miss Dale the Deer when he doesn’t show up on the deer cams for a day or two.