Fox reportedly hires Jay Cutler to replace John Lynch in the broadcast booth

Jay Cutler’s 11-year NFL career is over, and he’s headed to the broadcast booth.

According to Fox Sports NFL reporter Peter Schrager, Cutler will join Fox’s football coverage, replacing John Lynch as an analyst alongside Kevin Burkhardt and Charles Davis. Lynch left that job to become general manager of the San Francisco 49ers back in January.

Cutler’s move to the booth ends an NFL career in which he passed for 32,467 yards passing (37th all-time) and 208 touchdowns against 146 interceptions for the Broncos and Bears . Chicago released him in March following an up-and-down eight years with the team.

Cutler becomes the second former Pro Bowl quarterback to retire this offseason and join a TV network, following Tony Romo, who was hired by CBS.

Though Cutler had a reputation for being a bit sour, media who covered him rave about the insight and charisma he showed when he wanted to, which will play well as an analyst if he can keep it up full-time.

Awful Announcing’s Jay Rigdon somewhat predicted Cutler’s move to broadcasting in January, writing that the former Bears quarterback could be even better on TV than Romo:

Just imagine Jay Cutler in the booth. Please imagine it. First of all, he’s more engaging than he gets credit for. Second, imagine relatively unfiltered Cutler, just firing off takes with the same lack of discrimination he sometimes demonstrated in the pocket. That, not Romo, would be a dream scenario for viewers.

It’s easy to imagine Cutler seeming dry and boring on game broadcasts. It’s also not hard to see him being engaging. We’ll find out next fall.

UPDATE: ESPN’s Adam Schefter says Cutler had real options to continue his NFL career but chose broadcasting instead.