Dan Pompei of the Chicago Tribune wrote an article suggesting that Jay Cutler is being reigned in far too much, thereby failing to allow him to display all his talents. Read the article here and judge for yourself. In the meantime, have a happy New Year and here’s to some more Bears victories in 2010!
Link:
ChicagoTribune.com – Has Jay Cutler had his wings clipped this season?
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Wow! Not sure where that effort came from, but Jay Cutler and the rest of the Bears made the city proud last night by performing up to the task on a prime time game for once. Cutler upped his trade value (hey, this is TradeJayCutler.com after all) with an impressive performance against a top tier team.
I didn’t even find his lone interception to be nearly as detrimental as Jon Gruden did. Gruden is big on hyperbole, and he was all over Cutler for throwing that interception, but the truth is it was 3rd and a ton, and Cutler let it fly about 30 yards. You never want to get picked off, but if you’re going to give up an interception, that’s the time to do it. If it’s simply incomplete, you’re punting anyway, and with a decent return the Vikings have the ball in the same place anyway. Calm down, Chucky.
Not to be overlooked are the 4 touchdown passes. Fans don’t expect 4 TDs every time out, but what was nice to see was the lack of mistakes in crunch time – no overthrowing, no underthrowing, etc. The defense didn’t help the cause by utterly collapsing and giving up 30 second half points, and even the reliable Robbie Gould couldn’t help in OT, but the Bears did just enough to beat the Vikings and prevent Favre from winning his first game ever after falling behind by 17 points or more.
I give the Bears a heap more credit than the Colts this week. In games that “don’t matter,” one team still tried to win while the other was content in basically suspending the competitive spirit of the game until the games “matter” again. Using Indy’s logic, shouldn’t they just sit Manning in Week 1? Sure a first week game won’t have a great effect on a team likely to make the playoffs, so why risk injury?
Maybe the Bears should have sat Cutler the past couple weeks once the chance at a playoff berth disappeared. Why risk injury on a player considered to be the franchise in a season of lost hope? Save him for next year when the records are wiped clean again. Can you imagine an NFL where every coach only put out his best team when he felt a victory was relevant to the playoff picture? The Lions’ starters wouldn’t have played a down for 2 years!
What Indy coach Jim Caldwell did was embarrassing to the sport. Never underestimate the need for consistency and timing when it comes to playing winning football. The best way for healthy players to get better heading into the playoffs is to play, not sit on the bench. Hopefully Caldwell’s mistake won’t cost them a Super Bowl.
I can hear Hank Williams Jr. screaming at me now. Or Pink. Or whomever is singing the title sequence nowadays. With a 5-9 record for the Bears, though, I’ve also got my eye on a rerun of House and a mini-marathon of Community episodes.
While this site was intended as a forum to discuss the positives and negatives in trying to trade Jay Cutler while his value is still high, recognizing the fact he’s is one of the few assets on a team in need of a complete overhaul, much of the discussion has turned into a Cutler vs. Orton debate. I guess the Cutler / Orton table on the homepage didn’t exactly calm the storm, either. A few words on the two QBs:
Many of the Cutler supporters on the site (they are usually the same ones using profanity directed at yours truly) keep wanting to point out things like the bad year or two that guys like Favre and Manning had in their careers. They also point out that Cutler has no help around him, Orton has talent around him, and I know nothing about football. While the last statement might have some merit, suggesting that Cutler’s cast is terrible while Orton’s new team is stacked is suggesting that EVERY talent evaluator of the NFL got it wrong before the season started.
Looking back at many of the media’s preseason picks and NFL rankings heading into this season, I can’t find a single source that put the Broncos ahead of the Bears, but here we are, looking at a 5-9 team going nowhere in Chicago and an 8-6 team with playoff hopes in Denver. The analysts knew all about Lovie Smith, Ron Turner and their coaching styles, so as much as I dislike what they’ve done to the franchise, those things were taken into account when 4 of the 8 football analysts from USA Today picked the Bears to go to the playoffs. Guess how many picked Denver? 0.
At ESPN.com, it was more of the same. Of the 16 experts, a few placed Chicago in the playoffs and no one picked Denver. Another blogger ranked the teams based on talent and put the Bears 15th and the Broncos 31st. Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN.com actually complimented Denver and liked their chances, but still put them behind Oakland in the AFC West. The NY Daily News ranked Chicago 11th and Denver 26th.
You can probably pick apart any single prediction, but it’s obvious that the consensus before the season started was that the better team was the Bears. It’s tough to blame an entire lost season on a single Brian Urlacher injury, so at some point you have to criticize the players for not playing to their perceived talents INCLUDING CUTLER. On the flipside, Denver should be credited for playing above their perceived talents INCLUDING ORTON. The funny thing is that this is an ongoing occurrence. Orton’s teams are met with indifference and he unimpressively plugs along and gets WINS. Cutler’s teams are met with high hopes and praise but the LOSSES continue. How can you argue with results?
Stabler
The Cutler/Orton tracker is (sadly) updated. From Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com:
“The hits keep coming for quarterback Jay Cutler. His trio of interceptions gives him 25 on the season, which — according to the Elias Sports Bureau — is the highest total by a non-rookie in his first season with a new team since Ken Stabler threw 28 interceptions for Houston in 1980. And Cutler is only seven interceptions away from setting a new Bears record for most in a season, currently held by Sid Luckman (31 in 1947). Cutler is truly getting worse with every passing game in 2009. (Pun intended.)”1
Good gravy, Bears fans! What else is there to say?! I can’t stomach the argument anymore that Cutler’s problems are solely due to a poor receiver corps and a bad offensive line. The interceptions were simply bad decisions and even worse execution.
Meanwhile, Joe Flacco gets the privilege of throwing to a tight end on the decline when he plays everyone else (Heap) and a #1 wide receiver in Derrick Mason who is – let me check – 68 years old. The result? 4 TDs and no INTs!
SouthStandsDenver.com interviewed me the other day for their blog. You can check it out here. Don’t worry Cutler fans – I acknowledged the rest of Chicago’s problems, but that still doesn’t excuse Jay from a horrible season.
On ESPN1000 radio in Chicago Monday, Trent Dilfer checked in with the “Afternoon Saloon” and had some harsh opinions of Jay Cutler’s play this season. If anyone has the transcript from the interview, please let me know. Their podcast currently has some technical problems.
Basically, Dilfer wanted to make it perfectly clear that while several interceptions may be attributable to the wide receivers, Cutler won’t be able to hide from his performances because the team analyzes each play at the end of the year and determines which ones were good decisions by a player and which ones were bad decisions. Dilfer believes that Cutler will be found guilty of many more bad plays than originally thought.
Personally, I’ll be surprised if the Bears actually do some kind of post-season review with each player. They just don’t seem like the kind of team hell bent on getting it right. Don’t you get the feeling after Week 17, Lovie’s just going to give some speech like: “We did some good things. We did some not so good things. There’s a few things we need to work on. We all know we can get better, so have a good offseason, make sure you locker is clean before you leave, and I’ll see you at OTAs.” ZZZzzzzzz…..
“But Cutler can throw the deep ball, giving the Bears the vertical threat they have sorely missed for years!” -countless Bears fans confusing ‘athletic’ with ‘good football player’
Really?! Jay Cutler is capable of overthrowing the deep ball – I’ll give him that. The numbers for 2009:
Jay Cutler
Kyle Orton
