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The question for fantasy football owners became clear on Wednesday; it's no longer if Jay Cutler will be the Chicago Bears' quarterback; it's how effective can he be in that role?

This after general manager Ryan Pace put an end to any uncertainty by announcing publicly what we all knew was coming: Cutler will be the Bears starting quarterback. "We went through the process of thoroughly evaluating the roster and we're moving forward with Jay as our starting quarterback," Pace told reporters.

The pronouncement comes weeks after Pace and coach John Fox declined to comment on Cutler's status during the NFL Scouting Combine in February.

As NFL.com's Kevin Patra suggested, the underlying message at the time was that the Bears might like to move away from Cutler if they could find a trade partner and a substitute signal-caller. Neither scenario seemed realistic.

As CSNChicago.com's John Mullin explained during a recent appearance on PFT Live, everyone within the Bears seems resigned to the fact that they're stuck with Cutler for at least this year, and probably next year, too.

The reason, as explained by Profootballtalk.com's Mike Florio, is that Cutler and his agent "fleeced" the Bears when they got the team to agree to a huge contract extension in 2013.

That contract guarantees Cutler $15.5 million in 2015 and $10 million in 2016. There was no way that any team would be willing to trade for the right to pay Cutler that much money after a season in which Cutler played so poorly that he got benched.

Florio continued: "The $15.5 million the Bears owe Cutler this year is, at this point, a sunk cost. And the only way out of the $10 million commitment in 2016 is to cut Cutler now."

And that was as unlikely as expecting another team to pay Cutler that kind of money was.

What now?

After moving on from Brandon Marshall via a trade, Patra believes the best hope is that Fox brings a ground-and-pound style that takes the ball out of his mistake-prone quarterback's hands more frequently.

That's something Matt Forte owners would be just fine with.