It took a while, but the Bears are finally smarter than Denver.  Sure, Chicago sent an average QB with limited skills but an innate ability to win games to Denver along with a pack of future draft picks for a QB with plenty of athletic passing skill but questionable fundamentals and an innate ability to fail to get the best out of his teammates.  The result has hardly been a success on either side. 

For 2011, however, the Bears can be considered the smarter franchise.  Why?  Someone in Denver thought it would be a good idea to bench that average QB not for the second string QB but for the third string QB just because his name is Tim Tebow and seemingly just because Broncos fans know how to chant his name.  Needless to say, everything the scouts have said about him is true (basically summed up as “he is not an NFL quarterback”) and the results have been embarassing for Denver.

Meanwhile, Chicago keeps plugging along with its mediocrity, hoping to find some answers to Michael Vick Monday night and somehow get into playoff contention like last year.  This time around, however, it’s going to be a lot harder with both Green Bay and Detroit playing better football.

From gossipcop.com

Ever since Jay Cutler put on a Bears jersey the first time, this site made it perfectly clear that Chicago wouldn’t be able to get to the next level because Jay was a “fine” QB but not a franchise QB and, more importantly, without any help surrounding Cutler, the Bears were destined for mediocrity.  Here we are, years later, and nothing has changed.  When you trade away first round picks and have a history of difficulty in developing draft picks in general, the only way to improve the team is through free agency.  Julius Peppers was a great signing, but a lack of money and available free agents severely limits the strategy.  Other limits are self-inflicted, like paying Devin Hester as a prime receiver when he is only a special teams marvel.

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In the end, what you have is a team with enough talent to squeak by a bad team with a star like the Carolina Panthers.  What you also have is a team with enough weaknesses to allow themselves no mistakes if they want to avoid losing to bad teams like the Carolina Panthers.  In short, what you have is a mediocre team.  If Coach Green is around, you might put a hand on his shoulder and assure him that they are who we thought they were.

Will this mediocre team prevail against an upstart Lions team?  We’ll find out Monday…

Everyone seems to be passing nowadays...

After a record-setting Week 1 in which the NFL as a whole seemed to abandon the run, the question Bears fans are asking is whether this is good or bad for Chicago’s playoff hopes. 

Trying to be positive, let’s start with the good: a defense like Chicago’s, predicated on causing turnovers should thrive in a pass-happy league; Mike Martz loves to design passing schemes; Jay Cutler (like most QBs) loves to air it out; and Chicago’s best RB, Matt Forte, is extremely adept at pass catching, making him a multiple threat and an extra body to be keyed on in the passing game. 

Now for the negatives: the offensive line still has trouble protecting Cutler, so more passes means more chances at the dreaded “Cutler concussion”; Cutler isn’t exactly careful with the ball in the air (50 TD - 42 INT ratio in last two seasons); Chicago winters don’t lend themselves well to the passing game; and the Bears’ receivers are hardly ready to schedule their Pro Bowl plans.

In the end, Chicago must play to its strengths.  Use Martz’s mind, use the defense and hope it can help the offense through turnovers, use Cutler’s arm, and use Forte’s mobility.  Through necessity and lack of a true star wideout, Cutler is forced to spread the offense around, so if Martz tries to use that as an advantage that keeps the defense guessing, Chicago could have some success this year with two big “ifs” – IF Cutler doesn’t turn it over, and IF the line keeps Cutler on his feet.

Happily, I was wrong about Week 1, so hopefully the Bears will prove me wrong a few more times this season.

As if Jay Cutler didn’t have enough to worry about with his own inaccuracies and problems with last year’s offensive line, things only got worse as the Bears couldn’t resign veteran C Olin Kreutz, forcing the franchise to put this already makeshift offensive line at the hands of Chris Spencer, a veteran in his own right.  Spencer is not to be solely blamed for Cutler’s future concussions and, depending on who you ask, may even be a slight upgrade over a Kreutz who would have been playing in his 14th NFL season, but the cohesiveness of a line is a must when it comes to protecting the QB, and a new center will set back that chemistry even more.

Time will tell, but if I were in the Bears front office, I’d be trying a little harder to find a solid backup QB this year to avoid a Collins2.0 situation.

Hanie: Chicago's best shot at victory Sunday

In the end, it played out as expected: when it mattered most, one team played with poise, with purpose, and maintained control throughout the game.  The other team came out embarrassingly flat, dug itself a hole, seemingly found some late inspiration in an attempt to save face, but it was too little, too late.  Bears fans have seen this scenario too many times before.

Did the defense play well?  Yes, but not until they failed to show up for the first two minutes of the game as Aaron Rodgers methodically picked apart Chicago on the first drive resulting in a clean, efficient, quick score which showed the home team that the Packers were well prepared.  Playing from behind is never a recipe for success, so as much as the defense did to stabilize the game the rest of the way (only allowing one more TD), they put the offense in an uphill position before they held the ball.

Now for Cutler and the offense.  I see no need to comment on Jay Cutler’s injured knee because, for one, it’s pure speculation at this point (although an MCL injury seems to be the latest word), and two, if there’s one thing Cutler has shown over time is the ability to stay on the field.  Therefore, I can only comment on Cutler’s play in the NFC Championship Game.  One word comes to mind: poop.  In one half, Jay Cutler demonstrated everything that makes him frustrating, specifically incredible inconsistency when accuracy is most needed.

You don’t have to be an NFL analyst to see that Cutler was throwing off his heels, making ill advised throws (some seemed like bail out “lobs”), and showing a general disinterest.  His mood and mindset is irrelevant if his play is akin to his perceived talent, but the truth is that Cutler threw several balls asking to be intercepted but was lucky his numbers weren’t even worse than the end result.  Injury or not, the Bears were better off without Cutler in the second half.

Think about the last statement: the Bears were better off without Cutler in the second half. Not matter how much a Cutler fan you might be, it’s hard to argue against that statement.  In the NFC Championship Game, the Chicago Bears had a better chance of coming from behind and stealing a victory with Caleb Hanie behind center than Jay Cutler, healthy or otherwise.  Let that sink in for awhile, and readers will suddenly understand the point of this website.  Would that ever be the case with Aaron Rodgers and the Packers?  Never, but many people want to put Cutler at the same level as Rodgers and others and it’s simply not the case.

It’s not that a QB isn’t allowed to have a bad game (even the “unstoppable” Tom Brady and the Patriots failed to sniff the AFC Championship Game), but it’s Cutler’s overall decision-making and attitude in his “bad” games that make it obvious that his team is not going to win on that day.

Cutler was far from the only reason the Bears lost yesterday.  The lack of any offensive playmakers outside of Matt Forte was reason enough to think back about the early round picks Chicago could have used on developing the offense and the line while letting a QB like Kyle Orton carry the current team to its potential.  Fans, even Rex Grossman carried the Bears to a Super Bowl matchup, so don’t fire back that Orton couldn’t have done the same.  If you have the opportunity to get an elite QB like Manning, Brady, Brees, Rodgers, etc., I am all for making the deal to get it done.  Unfortunately, Jay Cutler proved that he isn’t one of those on Sunday.

It’s true: Jay Cutler’s postseason record is spotless.  He has never lost a playoff game in the NFL.  Ok, it’s also true that Cutler has never PLAYED in a playoff game, but let’s not argue over semantics.

As much as this site has questioned Cutler’s ability over the years, I’m not ready to dismiss the Bears chances simply because the starting quarterback is playing in his first playoff game.  It’s still just a football game, and if there’s one positive thing to take away from Jay Cutler’s penchant for the aloof, it’s that he doesn’t seem to get overhyped for a game, which is a good trait to have for an NFL quarterback.  See that, I just paid Cutler a compliment.

On the other side, Matt Hasselbeck will be starting his 11th playoff game of his career.  Does that give Hasselbeck and the Seahawks the edge then?  Not at all.  Hasselbeck is 5-5 in the playoffs, so while experience can’t hurt, talent and preparedness still matter, and the Bears are more talented than Seattle.  In fact, in Hasselbeck’s last playoff game against the Bears, it was a similar situation in that the Bears were home, they were the better team, but they had a QB (Grossman) who only had one playoff game under his belt (a loss to Carolina a year earlier).  The result?  An uninspired performance by Hasselbeck and an overtime win by the Bears.

I’m still not confident in Chicago’s roster in terms of it being talented enough to win a Super Bowl, but for this Sunday, the Bears are the better team and should dispose of Hasselbeck and his squad from Seattle.  The Seahawks won the regular season battle, but I foresee Jay Cutler getting his first playoff win and preserving his spotless postseason record.

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After a very weak performance to round out the regular season, Jay Cutler saw his QB Rating (or his Passer Rating as it’s more often called) drop to 86.3.  Meanwhile, Kyle Orton kept his comfortable seat on the bench in Denver as Tim Tebow tried his hand at this NFL QB thing, giving Orton a final Rating of 87.5 for the year.  What do these numbers tell us?  For starters, we know that it’s a mess of calculations involving yards, attempts, completions, touchdowns, and interceptions.  In the end, wins matter most but despite having SEVEN more wins as a starter than Orton this year, Cutler’s rating was lower.  Is that justified?

NFL stats are always more “effect” than “cause,” and the Passer Rating is no different.  Just as it can easily be proven that “winning teams run the ball more often” is effect rather than cause (they run because they are winning and want to minimize risk while maximizing clock usage), the same can be said of the Passer Rating since yards play a large part in the equation.  Orton was given a terrible team this year, and with no running game (free Twinkie to someone outside of Denver who can name a healthy Broncos RB) and frequent deficits, his only choice was to throw and throw often.  It is a credit to Kyle that in throwing for over 3,600 yards, he only threw 9 interceptions, but the reality is that many of these yards likely came against prevent and sagging defenses.  No defense wants to give up points, but when one team is down by several scores late in a game, the defense is likely to sag, give up chunks of yardage in the passing game, and with a break here or there, the worse team can score on occasion.  Orton took advantage of these situations and finished the year on the bench but with a pedestrian Passer Rating, which sums up his talent fairly well.

Now let’s look at the best quarterbacks in the league this year.  In no particular order, it’s hard to argue that Brady, Vick, Rodgers, and Rivers weren’t the four best QBs in 2010.  What do they have in common?  They’re the only QBs with a Passer Rating above 100 this season.  Despite the extremely small sample size, one has to admit that, in the long run, Passer Rating does a decent job of reflecting a quarterback’s performance.  Once again, Cutler’s 86.3 rating would indicate that he is an average QB. 

Rather than take shots at Cutler for not being better and living up to his so-called “potential,” maybe Bears fans should be ecstatic that the athlete with the consistently mediocre numbers actually overachieved and got 10 wins out of that 86.3 rating and played a role in getting the Bears the #2 seed in the NFC.  Don’t hate on Jay: celebrate Chicago’s good fortune in going 11-5 given the situation.  A couple more weeks of anomalies on the field and a Super Bowl is a real possibility.

(image from BleacherReport.com)

Forte: helping balance the offense

Some critics will gloss over their embarrassing  preseason predictions and act like they were on board all along.  Not me.  Looking back, I said “I just don’t see how the Bears can win their division.”  I guess a Minnesota meltdown and an injury-plagued year in Green Bay helped, but give Chicago credit – they won the games they had to play.  I didn’t post my exact predictions, but I’m not afraid to say that I thought with Detroit getting better, 5 wins would be a success.  Kudos to the Bears for proving me and everyone wrong.  So far.

Where does the credit go to the recent success?  Is Cutler the winning factor?  I don’t think so.  Looking at the differences between last year and this year, Jay Cutler has obviously played better, but he’s hardly been all All-Pro.  The 14 INTs are acceptable given Martz’s offense, and the 23 TDs are good enough with the defense winning most games anyway, but those NINE fumbles are troublesome.  Granted, many of them are the result of an absolute crushing blow from the blindside, but the greats like Manning and Brady can feel that pressure, step back into the pocket and release the ball before getting drilled.  Basically, Cutler is aware of the poor offensive line and sacrificing himself in the process: a noble but foolish thing to do for a team with no real backup QB.

Anyway, I can’t argue that Cutler hasn’t been solid most of the season to date, but the biggest turning point in the season was Martz’s willingness to suddenly show some tender loving care toward the health of his quarterback and attack the run with more consistency.  After a couple embarrassing early season losses and a drubbing by the Giants, handoffs became more plentiful, Cutler stayed upright, the offense became more balanced (keeping the defense off-balance), and wins started piling up.  Hopefully the strategy will continue through the playoffs.

Is the "C" for Chicago, Cutler, or concussion?

No, the title doesn’t represent the scores from Chicago’s last two games but rather the beating Jay Cutler has been taking since putting on a helmet with a “C” on the side.  In 21 games, Cutler has been sacked a whopping 57 times! More recently, in just his past six quarters of football, Cutler has kissed the turf an astonishing 15 times.  My preseason joke about Usain Bolt being the best option at QB suddenly seems almost realistic: the only human being fit to play quarterback for the Bears is the fastest human being.  Jay Cutler isn’t doing himself any favors by holding the ball longer than a baby holds a bottle before bedtime, however.  Still, when an OC tells you to drop back seven steps and you’re getting chased after four steps, there’s not a lot any quarterback can do.

I’ve reiterated my point time and time again, but I’ll continue to do so until Chicago fans and the Bears franchise realize that the dinner plate in front of them is exactly what they ordered.  You say you want a gunslinger with an attitude?  Check.  You say you think he’s a franchise quarterback even though the statistics show otherwise?  Check.  You say you are willing to give up the near future, including this “franchise” quarterback’s protection, just to get him?  Check.  Wait, you say you also want to give up the only mediocre quarterback on the roster who happens to show an innate ability to win despite the lack of talent around him?  Check.  Now hang on a sec – you say you also want to sign the new quarterback to a pricey extension even though the likelihood of a hospital stay increases with every passing day that an offensive lineman isn’t drafted?  Uhh…. Check.

Fans and front office, you got exactly what you ordered.  The Bears are a 4-2 football team in a league with an embarrassing amount of parity.  They are also a team with: no offensive line, no competent backup quarterback playing in a system where no starting quarterback could possibly last a season injury free, and a handful of former head coaches who are now coordinators or line coaches and don’t seem to grasp the need for a game plan that will keep the running game honest and protect the life of the starting quarterback, even if it means a few less yards here and there.

Truth be told, even with a tough second half of the schedule ahead, the Bears are still capable of finishing above .500 and becoming a playoff team.  The reality, however, is that playoff team or not, there’s not enough pass protection to make this team a Super Bowl champ.  What you have is a team with a better short term record than if they went into full rebuilding mode, but if and when Jay Cutler can’t take the field anymore, there will be nothing left and no pieces for which to build.  That means your team has sacrificed many years of potential future success for the possibility at a slightly better than average season ending with one likely playoff game if everything falls into place.

Are you okay with that scenario?  I’m not, and that’s why TradeJayCutler.com exists. We can only hope and pray that Cutler keeps his head attached to his spine and overachieves later in the year and impresses another GM.  Then it’s time to cut the losses, trade him away for draft picks and/or a steady but unsexy QB and rebuild the way Chicago should have been doing the past two seasons: through the draft.  When, and ONLY when, the o-line and other pieces are in place, should the Bears start looking for their real franchise quarterback.  Doing so before then is hazardous to one’s health.

Pack penalized 17 times!

Like Week 1, Week  3 wasn’t pretty but it got the job done.  Cutler and the rest of the offense seemed nonexistent at times, but that’s because they literally weren’t on the field for many portions of the second half.   The defense used a “bend but don’t break” strategy, and it worked when Rodgers and the Packers milked half of the 3rd quarter and came away with nothing more than a blocked field goal.  17 penalties on Green Bay didn’t hurt either.

Cutler was tough as nails again, but he did make some questionable decisions including airing out a woefully underthrown ball in the 4th quarter which was intercepted but got bailed out thanks to pass interference.

In the end, the offensive line still looked weak, Lovie still made some questionable decisions, and the Bears won thanks to a punt return and a timely turnover.  I’m not sure how long this “secret formula” can last, but it just feels like fool’s gold.  At least it’s 3-0 fool’s gold.

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