Our Next QB

[cubzzzfanincali]

Of course I watch every game. How the hell do you think I knew that several of Cutler's INTs came on garbage time hail mary plays? I can't stand people that just look at stats.

If you watch the games, Cutler is playing well. Look at the Dallas game. He had completed 10 of 13 for 100 yards with 1 TD and no INTs, yet the team was down 14-7. How do you score only 7 points to that point when the QB was playing that well? If you were WATCHING the game, you saw stupid things stop drives that had nothing to do with Cutler. Like the drive that they got a first down, but the holding penalty set them back. Or the drive that Marshall dropped the pass. Or the drive that Forte fumbled. That's how you can be down 21-7 despite the QB playing very well. Not much Cutler could do with the offense around him crumbling. But short sighted fans will just blame the QB.

If you watch the game, he is playing very poorly. I'm going to make a friendly suggestion to you. Next year, when the season starts up, sign up for something called NFL Game Rewind. It offers you a view of the entire secondary as one of the options (although no live feeds during games, which sucks). Every week, if you have a normal amount of time to commit to watching NFL on the side, you can probably go through a couple of extra games in really good detail. What you can see this year on the all-22 is that he is making an inordinate number of mistakes missing guys who are wide open.

Cutler's stats, and his play, are "enhanced" a little bit this year because he is completing a large number of short range passes. Look at his yards per pass. You may hate stats, but that should tell you something. His long game sucks this year, it is positively awful. He is missing wide open guys when they are there and testing them when they are not. That's a serious problem. It has caused a lot of first downs to go by the wayside.

Nobody is saying he is the only problem with this team. We are saying he is a serious problem with this team. If you can't see that, nothing personal, but I think your football IQ is really low. Which is surprising, considering you clearly have enough self-depracation to actually out yourself as a Tebow fan in your ID, which hats off to you I think is a funny bit of satire.

 

[Wounded Bear]

If you watch the game, he is playing very poorly. I'm going to make a friendly suggestion to you. Next year, when the season starts up, sign up for something called NFL Game Rewind. It offers you a view of the entire secondary as one of the options (although no live feeds during games, which sucks). Every week, if you have a normal amount of time to commit to watching NFL on the side, you can probably go through a couple of extra games in really good detail. What you can see this year on the all-22 is that he is making an inordinate number of mistakes missing guys who are wide open.

And that's just the thing, we really could have benefitted more from a Jay Cutler who would have gotten back to fundamentals and taken care of the ball more for this team, especially with how fragile our defense was this year. I would not have expected Jay to lead us to the playoffs with good fundamental play, but I would have liked to have seen a certain maturation process or progression under the tutelage of Trestman that would have given me hope for future seasons.

But what I'm seeing this year from Jay is the same as every other season from Jay - a wildly inconsistent player whose level of performance is a crapshoot from game to game. He still locks onto wide receivers, still refuses to go through his progressions consistently, still doesn't take care of the ball when pressured, still can't seem to gage a receiver's speed and hit him in stride. Forgivable stuff from a guy just out of college. Not so much with a guy in his 9th season.

Just wanted some hope. But it's almost a regression.

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

Yeah.

Well anyway I for one have beaten this horse to death and back, there's nothing we can do it about, I'm going to try to stop bitching about it. It would be really, really, really, really helpful if Jay would help me out here and come out and have an epic game on Monday.

Or even just a decent one would be fine. Here's to Jay taking himself out of the equation and letting the defense lose the game for us, straight up.

 

[Sportsdude101]

Hundley is thinking about coming out early. Try for him and let him learn for a couple years..

 

[AmericanTebowFan]

I'm not bad at math, I'm just not including third stringer QB stats in the consideration of "average." I am considering the nominal starters only. That should have been obvious, but I guess I had to actually spell that out for you.

Yes, he has thrown garbage time INTs, and garbage time TDs, in excess of the norm. And he has to, because he has not been good enough in first halves to get it done and leave us in a competitive position in games near the end, so we have to throw.

I just went through the 34 starting QBs in the passer ratings and found that the average passer rating for a starting QB this season is 89.9. So Cutler still is slightly above the average at 91.7. He's only a few points away from guys that are several spots ahead of him in the rankings, so he could easily move up to 10 or 11 with 1 or 2 great games. Let's see how he finishes.

I think a big part of Cutler not having much of a downfield passing game this season is the lack of time the OL has given him. Guys like Jimmy Johnson and Phil Simms have broken that down and shown examples of how Cutler hasn't had the time to throw the ball down the field. Often there have been guys breaking open, but he's had to go with the short passes because of pressure. In years that Cutler has had an OL that gave him more time, he had no problem getting the ball down the field.

Again I think the Dallas game is a good example of the problems with the offense. Cutler was playing very well and had a passer rating well over 100 early in the game, and yet the offense had scored only 7 points because dumb things like penalties and dropped passes kept hurting drives. It's not always on the QB. If Cutler completes a 15 yard pass for a 1st down but it gets called back because of holding, what can he do? The Bears have had an unusually large amount of drives ruined by penalties this season and that's something Trestman keeps talking about. Watching these games, to me it looks like Cutler is playing well. Not great like an elite QB, but pretty good. Good enough that the offense should be scoring more. For some reason the offense keeps making tons of mistakes and there's lots of blame to go around. Forte was actually the goat last week because his fumble turned the game into a blowout. The Bears were driving and instead of it possibly being 14-14, it turned to being down 21-7 due to the fumble.

 

[AmericanTebowFan]

And I was a fan of Tebow because he played the game like a MAN rather than like a women. It makes me sick when I watch some of these QBs like Kyle Orton that go into a cowardly slide when they need only 1 or 2 more yards to get a first down. Tebow played like a REAL football player. Unfortunately he was a poor thrower so he couldn't last as an NFL QB. But playing the game like a man is one of the reasons I like Cutler. He's not afraid to dive head first when his team needs a 1st down. So many other QBs are cowardly and afraid of getting injured.

 

[richig07]

And I was a fan of Tebow because he played the game like a MAN rather than like a women. It makes me sick when I watch some of these QBs like Kyle Orton that go into a cowardly slide when they need only 1 or 2 more yards to get a first down. Tebow played like a REAL football player. Unfortunately he was a poor thrower so he couldn't last as an NFL QB. But playing the game like a man is one of the reasons I like Cutler. He's not afraid to dive head first when his team needs a 1st down. So many other QBs are cowardly and afraid of getting injured.

Tebow undoubtedly played hard, and ran hard. But he also had zero choice, it was literally all he could do. I admire his passion. But as a guy, I am really not a fan. I think the image he presents of himself is pretty phony. Although, I digress, because I have zero desire to debate over the guy. He seems like a nice enough person, and I don't doubt that his heart was always in the right place.

Orton is a god awful runner and athlete. There is no benefit to him putting a shoulder down. Only something bad can happen. There's a reason QB's like Orton, Manning, etc… slide.

The part I agree with you on here, is that Cutler is tough as hell. This is one conclusion that no Bears fan can deny if they are honest with themselves. One of the many aspects of Cutler I always felt was/is misunderstood.

Still a fan of him. Just can't back his play any longer, until he proves otherwise. I truly don't know how anyone can defend him after this season. Yes, his TD/Yardage numbers are certainly above average. But his turnovers are next to dead last, and they have cost the Bears in a huge way. He hurt the Bears time and time again this season when it mattered most. His completion % past 10 yards, I believe is also 30th out of 34 qualifying QB's.

 

[richig07]

Russell Wilson, according to virtually everyone I know, is considering a running QB. Which is why he leads the league by a wide margin in rush attempts. You don't agree, fine, but in most universes he is.

Saying you would take Cutler 100 times vs Kaep is, to me, crazy. The 2012 Kaepernick playoff games - simply from his snaps as a pocket passer - he blew away anything Cutler has ever delivered in the playoffs.

And have you forgotten the first rushing QB of note, Steve Young? He wasn't too bad. I think my problem is making some kind of absolutist statement like you did. First of all, virtually nothing in football follows such binary "laws" like "running QBs can't do it." I think that's nuts. Yes, I get it that relying on running can mask or retard pocket passing skills, no kidding, and I don't personally want the Bears to switch to a running QB philosophy, but I wouldn't be caught dead making some kind of statement like "running QBs can't win in the playoffs", because they have, they can, and they will. Certainly more than our fabulous Cadillac-priced QB has.

Running QBs are interesting, but you have to realize that the struggles a lot of them are facing this year is precisely because they are being forced to stay home more, not be let loose, which defeats the whole advantage they bring to the table. That 2014 coaches are keeping the reins on doesn't mean they will be held back in 2015 or 2017 or 2021, and it is naive to assume that. Cam Newton, who is not what I would call a great QB, is probably a better decision-making QB than a few of the more notable pocket QBs (certainly including Cutler). I would certainly not say something along the lines of the fact that Cam will never win a Super Bowl, because he might, and the same goes for Kaepernick, RG3, and Wilson (again). Plus whoever else winds up following down that road, which someone is bound to.

I'm not talking about QB's who are good runners. I'm talking about QB's in which running is far and away their best asset. Steve Young certainly does not fall into that category, nor does Russell Wilson IMO.

I'm talking about the Randall Cunningham, Micheal Vick's, RG3's and Kaep's of the world. I'm not saying they CANNOT/COULD not win a super bowl either. However, these type of QB's all come into the league BLAZING hot, and then plateau. Wilson continued to make progress as a passer, and seems like a true student of the game. While to me, Kaep… RG3… etc… are just runners. And that's all they ever will be.

In Kaep and RG3's case as well, they even regressed. The league adjusted to them. I believe the window is very small for them to win a SB for that reason, along with the fact the injuries inevitably begin to pile up. Kaep caught lightning in a bottle his rookie year, and had a good run his second year as well.

I just think with running QB's, everything REALLY has to fall right. Historically, the VAST majority of the time, it does not.

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

I'm not talking about QB's who are good runners. I'm talking about QB's in which running is far and away their best asset. Steve Young certainly does not fall into that category, nor does Russell Wilson IMO.

Ah, well, I guess using that definition, you'd be right. I've just never heard of a running QB being excluded from such a discussion because they are also good passers. But, OK, sure, if you take away the better passers, their chances drop. I'd say that's true of both running and non-running QBs though.

You know, in discussing this last night at the bar with some 49er fans (always a dubious prospect, I know), Kaepernick and Cutler this season have more in common than one would think (for such guys as different as both QBs and as people). They may have the two strongest cannon arms in the league. They are both subjected to above average pass rushes, and are both exhibiting accuracy and pass selection problems. Both have seen a marked fall off in the longer passing game. Both have huge new contracts, and both have significant fractions of the fanbases that have turned on them.

I'm not sure what to make of Kaepernick. His accuracy was never bullet straight, but he wasn't off so much in past years as in this year. Is it in his head? Injury we don't know about? Guy is only in his third full season, a lot could happen yet.

I used to sit there making excuses for Cutler's weaknesses as well. Every year, there was a reason why I'd put up rationalizations for why he was a good QB but not an elite one. Now he's not even average, he is harming as much as helping. He always had the talent to be among, if not THE best. Just goes to show, it takes a lot more than a strong arm. Now that I am giving up on Cutler (whoever posted that video deserves an award), I guess now the mysterious underachieving QB I can fixate on is Kaepernick. At least with him, I am watching him struggle for a team I hate, so it's not all bad.

 

[beardown07]

If you were to compare the two by technique and mechanics, Cutler has a far better throwing motion.

 

[DJ Fieri]

I want a rookie QB next year. Oh, also a new coaching staff. Ya, and trade Cutler, Marshal, Forte. Blow this turd up. Put Clauson in now. Jay will play great now that it does not matter, he'll FK our draft up. Were looking at 2 years rebuilding here. There is no quick fix. Get something for the older guys now.

Put Clausen in?

 

[cubzzzfanincali]

ok, a little dated, but you guys might enjoy some of these. Happy Sunday!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ5fUFDS0uI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYlTpX9bNIs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttBebbZPMwQ

 

[noonthirtyjoe]

Put Clausen in?

Only to insure we draft at the top. Cutler will play lights out now that were out of it.

 

[nomoreshoop]

yep, like when Wanny played us out of the McNabb pick.

 

[richig07]

Only to insure we draft at the top. Cutler will play lights out now that were out of it.

Yup.

I actually think they beat New Orleans tomorrow night. Just seems like something they would do.

 

[JoeyTourettes]

yep, like when Wanny played us out of the McNabb pick.

Whoa... you think McNabb would have faired any better here? Ha... He would have been spit out of this city much sooner then he was in Philly.
No QB in Chicago. Might as well just run the wishbone and try to win with Defense...and passion and fire and heart.

 

[richig07]

Whoa... you think McNabb would have faired any better here? Ha... He would have been spit out of this city much sooner then he was in Philly.
No QB in Chicago. Might as well just run the wishbone and try to win with Defense...and passion and fire and heart.

I don't really understand what you're trying to get at here.

 

[JoeyTourettes]

I don't really understand what you're trying to get at here.

I don't believe that Chicago has the culture to support a "franchise" QB.
I believe that if they had a chance to sign a Andrew Luck, Rodgers, Manning... the fans and/or the organization would have run him off, ruined him or poised him.

There is no way to know this of course- but I would love to see What would have happened if Chicago drafted Tom Brady in the 6th round- Do you really think he would have become the Tom Brady we know...here?

Dick Jauron in his second year- Cade McNown in his second year. Shane Mathews, Jim Miller also started games that year... I can speculate he might have gotten a start too- (he would be in replace of Miller or Mathews) w/3 more years of Jauron? With 9 years of Lovie? Would they have seen what Belicheck had seen? Would he have developed like he did?
Could the fans have "believed" or would they have seen enough with all that to believe Tom could be the guy? Doubtful to me. Brady was a "game manager" when he took over for Bledsoe... they went on to win a SB... Don't see the Bears and those teams doing that. That was part of his legend.
Would the team have traded for Randy Moss like NE did? Without Belicheck/

I just don't think so- and Tom Brady would have been just another name in the list of "failed" late round picks for Chicago.

Aaron Rodgers?- The Bears just used a first round pick on Rex the year before... if for some odd reason they drafted Rodgers 22nd the next year- would he have developed the way he did? I can't say what would have happened with the fans... Rex was injured and looked promising before he got hurt- 2 years in a row. Assuming he would have started as a rookie (instead of Orton) would he been prepared enough? Would Lovie be saying "Rex is our QB?" I have no idea how he would have developed playing as a rookie, as good as he is now... we will never know. Did sitting behind Favre help more then starting as a rookie? I can think he would have outplayed what Orton did in 2005. No Cedric Benson on that team. In hidesite that would be great... I just know what would have been.

 

[Wamu]

Bears fans...




How about Johnny Finger for your 2015 2nd round pick?

 

[averagejoe]

Joey, I see your point and I agree somewhat. One of the differences is that the Bears don't seem to have a coach that DEVELOPS a QB. Trestman is actually supposed to be that kind of coach. A lot of the QB's you listed have had above-average coaching staffs.