ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Positives? In no order of importance, Jay Cutler wore very stylish orange-and-black cleats, threw a couple of crisp passes and walked away from his first exhibition game as a Bear without a limp.

If you’re a glass-half-full person, you stop right there. The rest of us look at the glass and say, “Yes, but all that emptiness.”
Cutler completed 5 of 10 passes for 64 yards, threw an interception and had a passer rating of 30.8 Saturday night in the Bears’ 27-20 loss to the Bills. Seeing as how the preseason hype has given the impression that Cutler is a long-lost Manning brother, this game seemed to show he actually was separated at birth from Rex Grossman — and not even Good Rex.
Neither depiction is anywhere near accurate, of course. The reality is that nobody could possibly live up to the expectations that have been placed on Cutler.
If you’re into snap judgments, you say he didn’t look like a quarterback worth two first-round draft picks, a third-round draft pick and Kyle Orton. If you’re not — and bless you for that — you say it was one quarter of play in a meaningless exhibition game.
But there’s no denying Cutler looked bad Saturday. He threw off his back foot on a pass intended for Devin Hester, and the result was an interception by the Bills’ Leodis McKelvin. Afterward, Cutler implied it was the kind of jump ball Hester needs to get, but the ball clearly was underthrown.
Cutler should have been picked off again on the next series, but Buffalo’s Reggie Corner dropped a ball that hit him right in the numbers. Whether the mistake was the quarterback’s or the receiver’s was unclear. What is clear is that very few people expected this kind of performance from Cutler.
Come to think of it, the Bills had a chance at another interception and tipped one other Cutler pass. Saturday didn’t reach bad-dream proportions. It was just sort of unsettling.
“As soon as we start getting into the game plan, really nailing stuff down, that’s when it’s really going to count,” Cutler said. “We’re just calling base stuff and seeing what happens out there right now.”
Glass half-empty: The base stuff isn’t working.
Cutler had two passes that made you sit up — a 20-yard completion to Hester and a perfectly timed throw to tight end Desmond Clark for 30 yards. Those are the kinds of plays Bears fans expected, and quite possibly what they’ll get. What should calm the masses is that neither running back Matt Forte (hamstring) nor tight end Greg Olsen (hip) played.
For those of us who have questioned Cutler’s mental makeup and not his physical abilities, the more interesting topic is how Cutler will react after a few series or games like this. Saturday gave us no answers.
There wasn’t much meaning here, period, no matter how blaringly loud the buildup was.
The Bills’ opening kickoff went out of bounds, giving the Bears the ball at the Buffalo 40. You could almost see the thought bubble over the standard-issue Bears fan: Do they have a death wish giving Cutler the ball there? His first pass was a 2-yard sideline completion to Hester. Another thought bubble: Is former Bears offensive coordinator John Shoop haunting the Chicago sideline?
It’s clear the offense has a ways to go. It’s not going to be automatic just because the Bears have a quarterback who played in the Pro Bowl last year.
And maybe Cutler should be less focused on telling the coaching staff which receivers he likes and more focused on meshing with the ones who are on the field at any given time.
“It takes time,” Bears offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. “You don’t just snap your fingers and say, ’All right, Jay Cutler’s here. We’re going to be in sync and start clicking.’ “
As much glee as the pro-Cutler crowd got out of Orton’s three interceptions in the Broncos’ loss to San Francisco on Friday night, they couldn’t have been in full trash-talking mode after Cutler’s effort Saturday. Four series and three points on a Robbie Gould field goal is not the stuff of legend. Maybe everybody should focus on their own quarterback.
And if anybody knows the whereabouts of training camp standouts Brandon Rideau and Earl Bennett, please contact the Bears.
But again — and this can’t be overstated — it was the first exhibition. Nobody got hurt.
“We’ve got a lot of time until (the opener against) Green Bay,” Cutler said. “But if we come out and play like this, then we’ll have some problems.”