Jay Cutler wants back into the big bucks NFL TV game.
With analysts like Troy Ailkman and Tony Romo commanding multimillion-dollar salaries, the former NFL quarterback tells Front Office Sports he’s interested in an analyst gig with Fox Sports, Amazon Prime Video, Apple, or any of the NFL’s TV or streaming partners.
With Aikman poised to jump to ESPN’s “Monday Night Football,” Fox is currently searching for a No. 1 analyst.
“I would love to do it. I think it’s a fun gig. It keeps you in the game,” the 38-year old Cutler said Wednesday. “If an opportunity arises, I would jump at it.”
The former Chicago Bears quarterback was hired by Fox as its No. 2 analyst behind Aikman in 2017. That was the same year rookie analyst Romo made his debut for CBS, on his way to quickly becoming the highest-paid analyst in the business at $17.5 million per year.
The retired Cutler was supposed to work in a three-person booth with Charles Davis and Kevin Burkhardt. But he bailed out before calling a game, returning to the NFL as a backup quarterback for the Miami Dolphins with a salary of $10 million per year. He retired again after a 12-year NFL career in 2017.
Times change, said Cutler, who split with celebrity wife Kristin Cavallari in 2020 after three children and seven years of marriage.
“I was in a period of my life where the kids were young,” he said. “I didn’t want to get back into that schedule of Friday-Saturday-Sunday-Monday-gone. But now things have calmed down for me. My kids are a little bit older and in a better place.”
Cutler remade his image as a sullen slacker via his star turn on E!’s “Very Cavallari” with his ex-wife from 2018-2020.
Cutler was hailed as the breakout star of the reality program. “Jay Cutler steals the show with his indifference,” wrote the Chicago Tribune. Bill Simmons’ The Ringer offered a weekly blog on the “perfect reality show character.”
The former first round pick out of Vanderbilt was reluctant to do reality TV at first. But he quickly loosened up. Now he credits the show and his ex-wife with enabling him to show a different side of himself to fans and the public.
“She did a really good job of putting me in good positions on the show. I think people got to see a little bit of a different side of me,” he said.
What about that bored Cutler expression so familiar to football fans? That was him putting his game face on, according to Cutler.
“Whenever I played football, it was business. I went out there and did my job. When you go into some of these press conferences, you have your stock answers that you give. That’s how it was for me,” he said. “Social media has changed the NFL and sports in general. I think players have a much bigger voice than now than when I started playing.”
The former Pro Bowler has since launched his own podcast. He’s also the founding partner and design director of the Outsider media/lifestyle company in Nashville, where he’ll team with new Chief Executive Officer Deirdre Lester.
Cutler confirmed that his agents have already “floated” his name to Fox, Amazon, and others. TV would give him the freedom to do his podcast and work with Outsider.
“I could do everything I wanted to do. Color commentary is kind of the last bucket. If I can get that filled, it would be great,” he said.
