QBs hold the key in NFC title game

Associated Press

CHICAGO

Aaron Rodgers and Jay Cutler are two young quarterbacks on the rise, blessed with slingshot arms and nimble feet. Both can handle postseason pressure, earning their first career playoff victories in recent weeks.

They’re friendly off the field, exchanging congratulatory text messages when their respective teams won last weekend to set up what might be the juiciest conference championship game ever.

And both men have a chance to cement a place among the NFL’s top quarterbacks when the Green Bay Packers and Chicago Bears revive their historic rivalry in today’s NFC championship at Soldier Field.

For fans, it’s a passionate fight for ultimate bragging rights. For players, the game will likely be decided by the two quarterbacks’ ability to make big plays and keep drives alive against two top defenses.

“Once you get to these games, it is a quarterback’s game,” Bears coach Lovie Smith said. “When they have open receivers, hitting them. Standing in the pocket, taking a couple hits if you have to, just being that leader that the team sees is out front making plays.”

But any similarity between Cutler and Rodgers ends when it comes to public perception.

Rodgers is the guy who gracefully scrambled out of Brett Favre’s shadow.

Cutler is Favre 2.0, minus much of the homespun country charm.

Rodgers remained poised and quietly confident after Favre was traded in 2008 — even after Rodgers was booed by some of his own fans. Since then, Rodgers has won over just about everyone with his stellar play and likable personality.

If anybody in Wisconsin is still pining for Favre in green and gold, they’re doing so very quietly.

“He’s playing his best football of his career at this point, and that’s what you want, especially this time of year,” Packers coach Mike McCarthy said of Rodgers. “He’s definitely a big-time quarterback. He’s everything we hoped he’d be.”

Cutler remains a talented work in progress.

His throwing mechanics sometimes break down, and he relies on arm strength and a gambling mentality that sometimes leads to head-scratching interceptions.

“I think you’re always growing,” Cutler said. “You’re always trying to get better. You’re always learning new stuff. Obviously I had to learn a little bit quicker with the new offense and Mike [Martz]. You’re always seeing different defenses and always critiquing yourself and if you’re not, you’re not going to get any better.”

But Packers linebacker A.J. Hawk says Cutler has a “huge” arm and seems to have his team behind him.

“I think they love having a guy like Jay Cutler, because he brings a lot of energy and big-play capability to the field,” Hawk said. “And I think he’s done a really good job all year of kind of capitalizing on the defense’s mistakes that are made against him and what he can do. He seems like he just has great command of the offense, great command of the game. That’s what you want out of a quarterback.”

Given Cutler’s risky tendencies, and his at-times aloof demeanor off the field, he hasn’t completely won over some Bears fans. That could change today.

“I think everyone in the locker room knows the magnitude of this game, knows what we’re going up against,” Cutler said. “But at the same time we’re going to enjoy it, we’re going to be loose, we’re going to play our game and we can’t worry about what is going to happen afterward if we win, we lose. We just have to go out there and play.”