My problem with Cutler after living with him for several years as a Bronco fan is that he is prone to making terrible decisions no matter what. He had quality receivers, a decent O line, and a run game to prop him up in Denver. And he surely didn't make as many mistakes there, but he did make mistakes and, most importantly, typically made them at the worst moments.
The number of red zone interceptions he threw was just staggering. He was certainly not the sole reason those teams didn't make the playoffs--the defense was consistently abysmal in those years--but each year another victory or two would have put us in the post-season and he didn't deliver that. I don't remember many games where I thought, "Wow! Jay Cutler just won that game for us all by himself!" but I remember a lot of games he helped give away.
I grew up watching Elway. He was a guy who could look terrible for three quarters, but suddenly in the fourth he was superhuman. Believe me, the reason he had so many come from behind victories was because he put us behind a lot (well, and Dan Reeves). But he was a guy who lived for the big moment, and raised his game under pressure. Cutler seems to be just the opposite.
He's 26!
At one point, so too were Drew Bledsoe and Jeff George.
So were Peyton Manning and Boomer Esiason. What's your point?
And both of those quarterbacks showed a lot more by the time they were 26 than Cutler ever has.
My point was that the Cutler apologists will always find an excuse and rationalize his shortcomings.
OK, a lot of things going on in this thread, let me try and organize my thoughts.
a) First, the team as a whole is awful, way worse than anyone could have thought. Last year this team was 9-7 and had a controlled its own destiny on the last day of the season to get in the playoffs. Obviously, the team deteriorated much worse and faster than anticipated. There are two people to blame for the downfall, Jerry Angelo and Lovie Smith. Both need to be gone, no doubt about it. Its not Cutler's fault that they are 4-7...
b) But that being said, Cutler has underperformed beyond anybody's worst nightmares. The day the Bears got him was arguably the biggest off the field day in Chicago since Jordan announced his comeback. The expectations placed on him were unfairly high. I would say his expectations were for a quarterback that was going to be a 9 out of 10 right away. In all reality, for the price the Bears paid, he should have been at least a 7 out 10. He has performed at a 3 out of 10 at best, regardless of what is around him. If he is the franchise qb that he it touted to be, then you don't throw 20 interceptions in a season, let alone 11 games. There are worse teams with worse qbs that have not thrown 20 picks. He continues to make poor throws and poor decisions. I don't care how old he is (and I would say that once you are in your 4th year of starting, you should have your position pretty much figured out, you can't make too many more excuses about him being "young") you can't miss those 3 tds against the Eagles, you can't throw 5 picks in a 4 point game, or 4 picks against the Packers. You can't blame that shit on anyone else but him.
c) The Orton comparison. Does Cutler have better physical tools than Orton? Absolutely. But does Orton have the mental abilites that Cutler has lacked? I think the answer is yes, and it shows with Orton continuing to win. Would this current Bears team be better with Orton? Possibly. I think they beat the 49ers, and maybe Green Bay and Philadelphia. But they may not have beaten Pitt or Seattle with him. So obviously its impossible to say, and in all reality we wont know who got the better end of the deal until much further down the road.
At the time of the deal, this was the greatest move of all time by the Bears and I agreed with that, but if you aren't somewhat questioning it now, then I believe you are overly confident in Cutler's abilities, because he has yet to show much of anything.
Joined: Fri Oct 22, 2004 12:47 pm Posts: 9282 Location: Atlanta Gender: Male
In all honesty I think it was the perfect storm. Cutler is an arrogant little shit but he is as such without accomplishing anything. Think about how self important he'd have to be to graduate from Vanderbilt; ace the Wonderlic and be a first round pick then force his way out and sign for huge amounts of money. No one in his life has ever told him he's wrong or he needs to operate a different way. He's smart, he's just overconfident in his abilities.
They have a horrid offensive line again Frank Omyale who is a cast off of an iffy at best Falcons offensive line is starting. They have garbage largely at WR. Thier best receiver is Greg Olson at TE and the next is probably Johnny Knox who is a rookie. They can't have much of a running game with the bad line and add that to big time pressure it's just not a recipe for success when you have a QB who is overconfident and willing to force it. Orton was a pretty good fit but they wanted maybe needed a star. Hell I can't think of any really star QB's in Chicago since Jim Mcmahon.
All this combined with an aging defense minus Urlacher... it just didn't shape up well.
Cutler needs to humble himself to get better. He has all the tools but he's too cocky. He will have to learn when to just throw it away.
He needs to own the blame for his failures in the red zone. Even with the lame OL...and average receivers they have moved the ball. It's been his judgement that has killed them in the red zone.
I'm not taking a shot at Jay. I'm not one bit taking a shot at Jay. He throws it better, right? And we haven't tried to run the ball as much. That's true.
But Kyle has won games. His formula works. So I'm not taking a shot at Jay or Kyle.
I do like Jay. He's a cool dude. But the way things are going right now, anything you say that appears to be derogatory, they're going to run with it. That's for damn sure.
People are going to think I'm taking shots at my teammates, but I'm not. The guys that have been around here and have played with me would know my tone of voice when I'm saying that (stuff). I don't feel like I said anything bad about Jay.
I was saying let's go back to winning. Simple as that.
Joined: Sun Oct 24, 2004 3:38 pm Posts: 20059 Gender: Male
i took it as a shot at the playcalling, not JC. he was complaining about the playcalling having changed as a result of bringing Cutler in, but not saying Cutler himself did anything wrong.
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dkfan9 wrote:
i took it as a shot at the playcalling, not JC. he was complaining about the playcalling having changed as a result of bringing Cutler in, but not saying Cutler himself did anything wrong.
That's what I said on the last page. A shot at the OC and the OL. He should also mention how important a Def is to a good running game too - one that doesn't give up 500+ yds and a score on most 1st possessions...
Joined: Tue Oct 19, 2004 12:54 am Posts: 2863 Location: Colorado
dkfan9 wrote:
i took it as a shot at the playcalling, not JC. he was complaining about the playcalling having changed as a result of bringing Cutler in, but not saying Cutler himself did anything wrong.
But why would the OC get blame? The team goes out and trades for a supposed franchise quarterback, wouldn't you expect them to open up the playbook a little bit? You can't give up that much for a guy and then suddenly stay a running team. He's trying to play to what Cutlers strengths are supposed to be. It hasn't worked out, but if they hadn't at least opened up the playbook, wouldn't people be bitching about what he's doing anyway?
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Scrub12 wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
i took it as a shot at the playcalling, not JC. he was complaining about the playcalling having changed as a result of bringing Cutler in, but not saying Cutler himself did anything wrong.
But why would the OC get blame? The team goes out and trades for a supposed franchise quarterback, wouldn't you expect them to open up the playbook a little bit? You can't give up that much for a guy and then suddenly stay a running team. He's trying to play to what Cutlers strengths are supposed to be. It hasn't worked out, but if they hadn't at least opened up the playbook, wouldn't people be bitching about what he's doing anyway?
i dunno about what anyone else is bitching about, i'm just talking about what urlacher's saying.
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thodoks wrote:
And both of those quarterbacks showed a lot more by the time they were 26 than Cutler ever has.
My point was that the Cutler apologists will always find an excuse and rationalize his shortcomings.
That's not true at all.
I'm not a Cutler apologist, i just knew this team was bad from the beginning and that this trade was for the next 10 years, not for 2009. And that was before Cutler took a snap for the Bears.
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Last edited by pnjguy on Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:36 pm Posts: 3271 Location: Chicago
Urlacher has hated on Cutler from the beginning. Remember what he told Bobby Wade before Cutler even took a snap? Urlacher is a dumb mule who is threatened by Cutler being the "face" of the organization. Of course he likes Orton, he wasn't threatened by Orton.
My question is what proof do people have that Cutler is arrogant? By his mannerisms? See Phillip Rivers. By his throws? See Brett Favre. By his exit from Denver? I would want out too when a newly hired head coach wants to bring in another quarterback. And if you wouldn't, you're a liar. I would say Cutler might be a bit abrasive, but that's it and not always a bad thing when being a quarterback, see Dan Marino. It's easy to hate on Cutler because of his goofy appearance but it's getting really old and pathetic now.
He needs to make better decisions and that comes with time. And with the right guidance, he will.
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thodoks wrote:
pnjguy wrote:
thodoks wrote:
pnjguy wrote:
mray10 wrote:
My problem with Cutler after living with him for several years as a Bronco fan is that he is prone to making terrible decisions no matter what. He had quality receivers, a decent O line, and a run game to prop him up in Denver. And he surely didn't make as many mistakes there, but he did make mistakes and, most importantly, typically made them at the worst moments.
The number of red zone interceptions he threw was just staggering. He was certainly not the sole reason those teams didn't make the playoffs--the defense was consistently abysmal in those years--but each year another victory or two would have put us in the post-season and he didn't deliver that. I don't remember many games where I thought, "Wow! Jay Cutler just won that game for us all by himself!" but I remember a lot of games he helped give away.
I grew up watching Elway. He was a guy who could look terrible for three quarters, but suddenly in the fourth he was superhuman. Believe me, the reason he had so many come from behind victories was because he put us behind a lot (well, and Dan Reeves). But he was a guy who lived for the big moment, and raised his game under pressure. Cutler seems to be just the opposite.
He's 26!
At one point, so too were Drew Bledsoe and Jeff George.
So were Peyton Manning and Boomer Esiason. What's your point?
And both of those quarterbacks showed a lot more by the time they were 26 than Cutler ever has.
My point was that the Cutler apologists will always find an excuse and rationalize his shortcomings.
I agree.
The guy has never shown me he's a winner. I have no idea how his teams fared in high school, but he has not had a winning record as a starter in either college or the pros. Yes, I know he went to Vanderbilt. Yes, I know it's not even remotely a football school. I know he beat Tennessee once while there. But if memory serves he won all of 11 games in college. He then never had a winning season with Denver. We know what's going on with Chicago this year.
I'm not saying any of those losing years were his fault. In most cases, they obviously weren't. Vanderbilt was never going to compete in the SEC, Denver had terrible issues with the defense, Chicago has so many issues this year it's ridiculous. But if he's 26 and hasn't played on a winning team since (presumably) high school, then why do we think that he can be a winner or be clutch? Again, he seems at his worst in the biggest moments.
Joined: Sat Oct 16, 2004 10:57 pm Posts: 3332 Location: Chicago-ish
Scrub12 wrote:
dkfan9 wrote:
i took it as a shot at the playcalling, not JC. he was complaining about the playcalling having changed as a result of bringing Cutler in, but not saying Cutler himself did anything wrong.
But why would the OC get blame? The team goes out and trades for a supposed franchise quarterback, wouldn't you expect them to open up the playbook a little bit? You can't give up that much for a guy and then suddenly stay a running team. He's trying to play to what Cutlers strengths are supposed to be. It hasn't worked out, but if they hadn't at least opened up the playbook, wouldn't people be bitching about what he's doing anyway?
have you watched the playing by Turner this year (and the previous few?)
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:36 pm Posts: 3271 Location: Chicago
mray10 wrote:
I agree.
The guy has never shown me he's a winner. I have no idea how his teams fared in high school, but he has not had a winning record as a starter in either college or the pros. Yes, I know he went to Vanderbilt. Yes, I know it's not even remotely a football school. I know he beat Tennessee once while there. But if memory serves he won all of 11 games in college. He then never had a winning season with Denver. We know what's going on with Chicago this year.
I'm not saying any of those losing years were his fault. In most cases, they obviously weren't. Vanderbilt was never going to compete in the SEC, Denver had terrible issues with the defense, Chicago has so many issues this year it's ridiculous. But if he's 26 and hasn't played on a winning team since (presumably) high school, then why do we think that he can be a winner or be clutch? Again, he seems at his worst in the biggest moments.
Because being a "winner" and "clutch" are not measurable and have little to do with a single person's ability. I will call Cutler a bust when he's on a team that is at least average.
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pnjguy wrote:
I will call Cutler a bust when he's on a team that is at least average.
Ill be sure to cut the same slack for... Todd Marinovich, ryan leaf, joey harrington, brady quinn, david carr, david klingler, andre ware, dan mcgwire, jim drukenmiller, cade mcnown, dave brown, rick mirer, Heath Shuler, tim couch, akili smith, JP losman, patrick ramsey, byron leftwich and alex smith
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:08 am Posts: 22978 Gender: Male
edzeppe wrote:
pnjguy wrote:
I will call Cutler a bust when he's on a team that is at least average.
Ill be sure to cut the same slack for... Todd Marinovich, ryan leaf, joey harrington, brady quinn, david carr, david klingler, andre ware, dan mcgwire, jim drukenmiller, cade mcnown, dave brown, rick mirer, Heath Shuler, tim couch, akili smith, JP losman, patrick ramsey, byron leftwich and alex smith
and jamarcus russell, rex grossman, matt leinert, chuck long...
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 7:36 pm Posts: 3271 Location: Chicago
edzeppe wrote:
edzeppe wrote:
pnjguy wrote:
I will call Cutler a bust when he's on a team that is at least average.
Ill be sure to cut the same slack for... Todd Marinovich, ryan leaf, joey harrington, brady quinn, david carr, david klingler, andre ware, dan mcgwire, jim drukenmiller, cade mcnown, dave brown, rick mirer, Heath Shuler, tim couch, akili smith, JP losman, patrick ramsey, byron leftwich and alex smith
and jamarcus russell, rex grossman, matt leinert, chuck long...
all of which weren't pro bowlers, which Cutler was.
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