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Ten Foot Mailbag: Who Plays Cutler In A Movie?

By Tim Baffoe-

(CBS) So I'm attending the White Sox game Friday night. As is just my luck, the White Sox are in a bit of a bad stretch and really putting a damper on what I had hoped to be a meaningful game full of great playoff fever ambiance. No, the Sox aren't dead yet, but to ask most Sox fans you'd think the team casket had already been lowered into the earth.

Two games back with six left to play? C'mon, people. I've had greater odds against me on a singles cruise. How about getting out to U.S. Cellular this weekend and cheering on a team that is still very much in contention for a division championship? I very much would like to write bad columns about playoff baseball in this town, and I'm not giving up yet.

On to your questions. All emails and tweets are unedited.

Alright Baffoe, I know you probably have emails upon emails about [Monday night's controversial] game, but I just wanted to get your opinion and hear from someone who actually has a brain instead of half of the [jerks] talking on TV and the radio. The way I see it, this is just another way for ESPN, the NFL, and the fans to continue complaining about the poor officiating thus far.  At the same time, I do believe it was bad call. But we can only blame the replacement referees so much.  What if this had been a regular referee who made this call? It would still be controversial and talked about heavily across the sports world, but would it be blown up to this proportion? Would the players and coaches be tweeting about, "Getting ****ed by the referees" and get away without a fine or suspension? I just wanted to hear your thoughts not in tweet form.—Maxx Akel

Had union referees made the exact same call on the play at the end of the Green Bay/Seattle game it still would have been the top sports story of Tuesday morning. That's because the NFL trumps all unless something tragic or really out of the norm happens elsewhere on the sports landscape, especially when a game is decided by a controversial or unusual call or play. Packer lineman T.J. Lang's angry tweet after the game became the most retweeted thing in the history of Twitter. But would it have been covered en masse like it was across non-sports outlets?

No. The replacement refs had been a talking point all season and a focal point of fan ire because of multiple slip ups per week. They were Keystone Kops-ish. A Will Ferrell movie. Even the let-them-eat-cake team owners and league executives could not have predicted incompetence of such a magnitude.

I do not think that it was merely stoking the raging fire of bitchy fans, livid players, and talking heads. Complaints weren't just warranted, they were necessary. We're talking about players' and coaches' livelihoods and playoff implications here, the gambling element that we're not supposed to acknowledge, and not to mention the safety issues. And I give credit to ESPN's Steve Young and Trent Dilfer, who after the Monday night game took the league to the woodshed and were pretty much spot on with every point they made.

And Bears fans basking in the schadenfreude of a Packers loss all week—did you ever stop to think that there is a chance come the end of the season that it could be the Bears and Seahawks battling for a Wild Card spot more so than Bears/Packers for the division title? But, hey, the Replacement Ref Reign of Terror hath ended. Don't look back in anger.

Unless you're a Packer fan and they get eliminated from the playoffs in Week 17.

I work @ student health for a university. Any suggestions on what we could send out to scare students? pic.twitter.com/tHXJkMTJ@dustin_42

That picture you included represents the majority of non-student residents of most college towns, and the sight of townies and their spawn hasn't yet worked as a sex deterrent. Now, as a teacher of youth I'm compelled to first say to all you kids out there that sex can wait, and there are far more important things you should be focusing your energies on like academics and extracurriculars that will help shape your future.

The example I usually like to throw at students is, "Hey, look at your parents. Notice how they're always yelling at you and telling you what to do and what not to do and always in your business. Notice how mom and dad always have a short fuse and snap on you for the tiniest things. Don't they seem so old and tired and the least fun people in the world? And what about their tastes in music? I mean, seriously? You see old photos where people that sort of look like them are happy and vibrant, but now in the flesh they are broken human beings, grayer, beyond pathetic. Well, guess how they got that way?"

I assume every kid I've ever taught has since been celibate. You're welcome, America.

which Baldwin brother plays Cutler in the Lifetime movie about him? I vote Stephen.—@CoachFinstock13

 It is true that every kid in that acting family was born with Cutler's punch-me face, now that you mention it. Alec and Daniel are too fat and greasy to play Jay. Stephen is too busy blaming a Hollywood conspiracy against him for his lack of work instead of blaming his being a crappy actor to take a role criticizing his offensive line. William looks most like him, I say, and pulls off the "Whatever, bro" attitude best.

But are there more fitting actors outside the Baldwin family?

What about Edward Furlong? He totally has that "I hate the fact that I have to even be near people" swagger to him.

Jim Breuer could venture outside of the world of comedy or whatever he's doing these days to pay rent and attempt to play Cutler. Breuer has only two speeds: really unbearably loud or really unbearably stoned ("unBEARably"—see what I did th… nevermind). The latter terrible quality might allow him to pull off the Bears quarterback. I must note, though, that I am in no way endorsing Jim Breuer as a talent. He is not funny, and if you believe he is, ask someone to hit you with a wrench repeatedly.

I'd also just like to mention that I love Cutler's absolute prickishness like what he displayed Thursday during his weekly fielding of questions from the media. Absolutely love it. He knows what he is and what everyone outside the team thinks of him, and he owns the hell out of it. That is fantastic.

Thanks for emailing, tweeting, and reading. If your question did not get answered this time, that does not necessarily mean I am ignoring it. It may be saved for the next mailbag. Hopefully you're a slightly better person now than you were ten minutes ago. If not, your loss.

Want your questions answered in a future Mailbag? Email them to tenfootmailbag@gmail.com or tweet them with the hashtag #TFMB. No question, sports or otherwise, is off limits (with certain logistical exceptions, e.g. lots of naughty words or you type in Portuguese or you solicit my death). If you email, please include a signature.

Jeff Pearl
The author. (credit: Jeff Pearl)

Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa and Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @Ten_Foot_Midget, but please don't follow him in real life. E-mail him at tenfootmailbag@gmail.com. To read more of Tim's blogs click here.

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