Doug Williams Talks About Playing in Pain as Jay Cutler Narrative Changes

The Jay Cutler story has changed over the course of this week, gradually evolving from Sunday -- when it seemed like half the NFL went on Twitter to call Cutler a wimp for sitting out the second half of the NFC Championship Game -- until now, with most players seeming to step back and say they can't fault Cutler for sitting out if the doctors told him to.

And yet while the pendulum has swung, it hasn't swung all the way to full-throated support of Cutler: Most NFL players are still hinting that if they suffered a sprained MCL with a trip to the Super Bowl on the line, they would have toughed it out.

The latest player to say that is Doug Williams, who won the Super Bowl XXII MVP award with the Redskins after suffering a knee injury of his own.

In talking to Mike Wilbon of ESPN.com, Williams was careful not to criticize Cutler. And yet he also said that when he hurt his knee in the Super Bowl, there was no way he was leaving the game.

"If I could stand up, I felt I could play. Our trainer and doctor said, 'It's unstable.' But I told them, 'I can do this.' I could stand up," Williams said. "They kept telling me it was 'unstable' and I told them they could cut it off tomorrow."

And that really seems to get to the heart of the Cutler criticism: Other players don't necessarily want to say that Cutler was wrong to come out of the game, but to a man, NFL players seem to agree that they would have risked the health of their knees for a shot at the Super Bowl. That's something Cutler didn't do, and right or wrong, that will forever shape his reputation.