Did Jay Cutler really injure his hamstring?

If you watched the way Jay Cutler landed while trying to make a tackle after he threw an interception on Sunday, you may have thought he injured his shoulder. According to the Chicago Bears, you would have been wrong.

The Bears say Cutler left his team’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals with a hamstring injury. But as Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes, there has been some speculation that John Fox may have lied about the actual injury. Florio compares the situation to one in 2003, when then-Denver Broncos coach Mike Shanahan claimed quarterback Jake Plummer left a game with a concussion when Plummer really had a separated throwing shoulder.

Shanahan was fined for the fabrication, which he defended for strategic reasons. In the event that Denver’s other quarterback at the time had been injured and Plummer had been forced to re-enter the game (yes, in 2003 a guy could re-enter a game with a concussion), Shanahan didn’t want the opposition to know Plummer actually had a bad shoulder.

“To share with somebody that Jake has a separated shoulder and could not throw and our quarterback goes down, we have a good chance to lose the football game,” Shanahan said at the time.

In the event that Cutler injured his throwing shoulder and had to return to the game, it’s possible the Bears didn’t want Arizona knowing that he couldn’t throw. Considering how secretive Chicago was about Alshon Jeffery’s calf injury over the summer, that isn’t out of the question.

You can see the play where Cutler suffered the injury here.

The extent of Cutler’s “hamstring” injury is unknown, but it seems like Jimmy Clausen is the best bet to start Chicago’s Week 3 game against the 0-2 Seattle Seahawks, who will be at home looking for their first win of the season. Good luck, Jimmy.