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. Last year, on his wife Kristin Cavallari’s reality show, Very Cavallari, we met the real Jay: animal lover, sometimes-supportive husband, man whose ultimate goal in life is to do as little as possible. It was a glorious revelation—and now he’s back. Join us once again on this Jay Journey, where we’ll be 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 started.
Has Jay Cutler Evolved?
Through two seasons of Very Cavallari, we’ve seen Jay Cutler grow a lot. He’s gone from “wanting to do the opposite” of having a job to mildly considering a postretirement hobby—a giant development; he’s learned to be more supportive of his wife, Kristin Cavallari; he’s gone from wearing Carhartt hats at all times to sometimes not wearing Carhartt hats; and so on. But there’s one development hinted at in the season finale that I did NOT see coming.
To set this up: At the beginning of the episode, Jay Cutler is working on the engine of his souped-up Ford Bronco—an obnoxiously Cutleresque car if there ever was one. After he and Kristin do a little exposition, Jay asks, “Wanna ride?” and then they get in the car and begin to pull out of the driveway. But here’s the thing—they aren’t going anywhere:
Sorry, but that van (likely owned by the production crew) is very much in the way. This means one of two things: Either this moment was completely staged so that there could be a logical endpoint in Kristin and Jay’s conversation, or—and this possibility is much more shocking—Jay didn’t care about the van in the driveway and was wholly prepared to drive around it. You might think this doesn’t matter; that it’s not a big deal that Jay Cutler drove on his lawn for approximately two seconds. BUT IT IS.
Need I remind you where this show humbly began in the summer of 2018, with Jay Cutler forcing a girl to litter his lawn with cones so that no one would drive on it? In that series premiere, we saw just how many cones Jay Cutler kept in his garage to ward off any potential lawn-ruiners:
Am I to believe Jay Cutler has loosened his stance on car-lawn etiquette? Character growth—it’s an amazing thing to witness.
An Update on Cuts
Last episode, Jay proudly announced that he was ready to stop living a life of absolute inertia and open up a butcher shop, which Kristin brilliantly named “Cuts.” In this episode, Jay, Kristin, and Jay’s chef friend check out a potential venue for Cuts. Jay’s really excited about it.
“How fun would it be to go to an office every day?” Kristin asks. Jay responds not with words, but with this look:
I cannot wait for this place to open—not only so that I can move to Nashville and go to it EVERY DAY, but also so that I can watch Jay Cutler realize that a lot more goes into running a butcher shop than just eating meat.
The Mythology of Jay Cutler’s Turtleneck
In a brief scene from the finale, Jay Cutler and Kristin attend a party to celebrate the opening of TruMav, a gym run by Tim McGraw and Kristin’s former employee, Wirth. Jay Cutler came to the party in a fit:
Incredibly, this outfit has a backstory. You see, in Episode 5 of this season, Jay Cutler and Kristin attended a party hosted by their friend Chuy. They ran into Wirth there; this is what Wirth was wearing:
It’s the same fucking outfit.
“I almost wore a black turtleneck,” Jay Cutler told Wirth at the time.
“Are you lying?” Wirth responded.
Clearly, Wirth, Jay Cutler was not fucking lying. And he was so dead set on making sure you knew that that he wore the outfit to the opening of your gym. IN YOUR FACE. Don’t you dare question Jay Cutler’s honesty ever again.
Seriously though, how funny is it to imagine Jay Cutler getting ready for this party? What to wear, what to wear? he thinks to himself before the light bulb goes off—Oh, yes! Right! I haven’t gotten a chance to show Wirth my black turtleneck! He didn’t believe I had one too!
This is a 36-year-old multimillionaire showing off for a gym trainer who’s in his 20s. It’s adorable. (And it’s frankly troubling that I could call to mind the entire backstory of a turtleneck with ease.)
Jay Cutler’s Stance on Nipples
Look, I know it’s 2019, but don’t go showing yer nipples to everyone, OK? It’s uncouth. Thus is Jay Cutler’s take on nips.
“If Kristin has the nips out, you’re not a fan?” Kristin’s friend Kelly asks him at the TruMav party.
“No!” Jay yells. “If we’re leaving the house, let’s cover ’em up. I don’t understand—they’re not for everybody …’s enjoyment.” .
The Most Jay Cutler Moment of the Week
It’s been a while since we checked on Jay Cutler’s animals. Thankfully, the season doesn’t end without giving us an update. Looking for Jay, Kristin finds him outside, lording over a wild number of birds:
These are the chicks from the eggs Jay mail-ordered in Episode 5. “What are you doing?” Kristin asks as she approaches the coop.
“Uhh, just seeing if these guys are still alive,” Jay answers. This is a pretty weird response that sort of makes it sound like Jay Cutler is hoping the chicks won’t still be alive (if Jay’s past history with animals is any indication, we can’t rule this out), but then Kristin explains his concern: “Jay was trying to hatch—I don’t know—20-something chickens, I think, and we only got four.” She then makes this cool “oh well, 16 lost lives” face:
I am no egg-hatching expert. The only time I ever even sort of participated in incubating chicken eggs was for a class project in kindergarten, and let’s just say I phoned that shit in. But I did do a little Googling, and boy, four out of 20 is not great. Based on the reading I did on backyardchickens.com, the average hatch rate is 50 percent. That means Jay Cutler was 30 percentage points below average. That means Jay Cutler is 42 percentage points better at completing passes than he is at hatching chickens. Really tough look—though, I had a feeling things weren’t going to go well when I saw Jay pulling eggs out of a shoddy box with the word “EGGS” written on it:
A lot of things changed in Season 2 of Very Cavallari, but Jay Cutler’s penchant for killing animals did not.
And now my watch is ended. See you back here for Season 3. Hopefully Cuts will be open by then.