

Jay Cutler can keep the jacket on this weekend. (Nam Y. Huh / AP)

The Chicago Bears made a shocking change at quarterback Wednesday evening, benching the star for a guy who hasn’t started an NFL game in four years. It was a wacky move for a 5-9 team that has only two games left in the season, the kind of pointless, bizarro move that is out of character for the Bears.

What also sets it apart from other garden-variety strange moves is that Cutler, the highest-paid offensive player in the NFL and a man known for his removed demeanor on the sideline, isn’t generating a lot of sympathy.

He does, though, have Charles Barkley in his corner.

“It’s unfortunate, man,” Barkley said (via the Chicago Tribune’s Luis Gomez) at Chicago Cut Steakhouse. “When you’re a celebrity and things are going bad, normal people have no sympathy for you. It’s interesting, I was reading Beyonce’s article … she said once you’re famous, people don’t look at you as a person anymore. Jay Cutler is a person. He has a wife and kids.”

Technically, she said that “when you’re famous, no one looks at you as human anymore” in her film “Yours and Mine,” but the point is that Cutler is definitely famous and has a wife, Kristin Cavallari, who is, as well. But Cutler’s stats — he leads the league in interceptions and turnovers — and the seven-year $126.7 million contract he signed in January sit badly in Chicago and with Bears fans (see Wilbon, Michael). Barkley understands that and why the Bears would go with Jimmy Clausen at starter Sunday.

“I do understand it, but it still sucks,” Barkley said. “Every day, people are talking bad about you.”