Jay Cutler Injury: What This Means for the Detroit Lions' Playoff Hopes

Jay Cutler will undergo surgery on his fractured thumb. It's estimated he'll be out six to eight weeks, meaning he'll likely be out for the rest of the regular season. The Bears offense will be turned over to Caleb Hanie, as the Bears sit at third place in the NFC North, sharing a 7-3 record with the Detroit Lions.

The Bears are red hot, winning their last five, and their six remaining opponents have a combined record of 31-28. (The Green Bay Packers significantly inflate this statistic with their 10-0 record, as without them, their combined opponent record would be an easy 21-28.) Compare this to the Lions' remaining schedule, with a combined opponent record of 39-21 (yet again, the Packers significantly inflate this). 

Before Cutler's injury, saying fans were nervous about the Lions' performance over the next few weeks would be an understatement. With one of the league's most difficult schedules lying ahead, it would prove to be a most difficult challenge even to finish this last stretch going .500, to finish the season at 10-6. Yet not even that would guarantee a playoff berth. 

The Bears' remaining schedule isn't exactly easy itself, but it does include four matchups against teams in the league's two worst divisions (three AFC West and one NFC West). Just like the Lions, the Bears need at least three, if not four wins to ensure a wild-card spot. While most of their games are seemingly winnable, even without Cutler, four of them are in tough road conditions. Playing in Oakland is never an easy task, and they'll be visiting the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field on Christmas Day. 

Offensively, the Bears are sixth in the NFL with 26.8 points per game. A lot of this is credited to an exceptional turnover ratio of plus-10. Jay Cutler is better than a vast majority of starting quarterbacks in the league, and he's done so with a below-average receiving corps.

How Caleb Hanie holds together this offense will determine the Bears' fate. Will he be able to avoid turnovers as the rest of the team has done all season?

For a good indicator, look back at last year's NFC Championship game. Hanie came in as the team's third quarterback. On his sixth pass of the game, Hanie threw an awful pick-six to the Packers' B.J. Raji, putting the game nearly out of reach at 21-7 with six minutes remaining. While Hanie was able to come back on the next drive and score a touchdown, his final two-minute drill looked promising, but fell just short as he threw yet another interception in the red zone.

He finished the game 13-for-20 with 153 yards, one TD and two INTs, giving him a 65.2 passer rating. It's very easy to say that with Jay Cutler in the game, the Bears could have reached the Super Bowl. 

The Bears will heavily rely on Forte's ability to sustain drives to carry this team through the next six games. On the other end, teams will do everything in their power to force the Bears to throw the ball. With the combination of an inexperienced quarterback and subpar receivers, most of the remaining pass defenses have a favorable edge.

Sunday's game against the Chargers is a pretty good indicator of just how vital Cutler is to that Bears offense. With the Chargers' defense completely stopping Forte from doing anything, Jay Cutler capitalized by making key touchdown passes and using his mobility to keep drives alive. He did not get sacked once, yet again, and a lot of that credit goes to Cutler's ability to read the pocket and stay on his feet. Caleb Hanie does have an element of mobility, but not to the extent that Cutler does.

Realistically, this injury changes them from a legitimate Super Bowl contender to a playoff-caliber team with no shot at making a deep run in the postseason. While the team may still be playoff-hopeful, their chances of actually making it there just became an uphill battle.

Next week's game against the Raiders now becomes one of the most important games of their season.

The Lions could not have gotten a luckier break. With the Bears potentially out of the picture, and the Giants losing one of their last winnable games of the season, the Lions need only to do exactly what is expected of them at this point to obtain their first playoff birth in two decades.