robotboy Wrote:
that bears/giants game have been the worst football game ive ever seen. as god awful as the bears' o line was, and they were basically nonexistant, cutler needs to not hold onto the ball as much as he did. sure, some of it was due to receivers not getting open, but there were some opportunities and if anything he should just throw it away.
peter king says orton is flat-out a better qb than cuntler:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/w ... ek4/1.htmlQuote:
The numbers, and the impact, don't lie.
I realize it might be an unfair day to make the comparison that Kyle Orton's better than Jay Cutler, but I'm not pitting the quarterbacks against each other on the basis of Orton's terrific road performance at Tennessee and on Cutler's feeble and concussed one in New Jersey Sunday night. This is about a body of work -- granted, not a deep body of work, but a 20-game stretch.
In the NFL, a 20-game sample is enough to make a valid comparison. And on the basis of 20 games, it's hard to argue that Chicago got the better of the Jay Cutler-for-Kyle Orton deal. Forget the ancillary parts of the deal; Denver has not drafted well, and I'm not doing this item to get into the value of the two first-round picks and the third-rounder (which turned into Mike Wallace for the Steelers) acquired by Denver in the deal. Denver didn't do a good job with those picks, but I'm just talking Cutler for Orton. And after Orton's 341-yard performance in the 26-20 win over the Titans, I thought it would be a good chance to take a 20-game look at the two passers. I was surprised by what I found.
QB W-L Pct. Yards TD-Int Rating
Orton 10-9 .634 5,221 27-15 89.1
Cutler 10-10 .615 4,578 33-29 80.7
Through the first four weeks of the 2010 season, Orton's 1,419 passing yards leads the NFL; Cutler is 507 yards behind him.
As I remember the April 2009 trade, I'll never forget Denver coach Josh McDaniels telling me he wished Cutler just gave him, and his offense, a chance. "He'd have loved it,'' McDaniels said. "I think any quarterback would love it.''
Cutler got the change of scenery he wanted, but he struggled under offensive coordinator Ron Turner last year, and he's being plagued by terrible protection issues under new coordinator Mike Martz this year; he was sacked nine times and suffered a concussion Sunday night against the Giants.
How long will Cutler have Martz to work with? Who knows? Martz doesn't stay in one coordinator's job very long -- two years in Detroit, one in San Francisco and one now in Chicago. Then again, if the Broncos continue to flame out, Denver owner Pat Bowlen could make a change at head coach, but he's likely to give McDaniels at least one more year.
Quarterbacks under McDaniels have to be smart because McDaniels gives them so much latitude to change plays, both in the meeting rooms and on the field. Orton's very quiet, but I've witnessed him (last May) in meetings changing little things to make it easier to recall and call plays.
You'll remember, this was supposed to be a lopsided deal favoring the Bears. It's not every day you have the chance to get a franchise quarterback in his prime, still young enough to give you six or seven seasons. It's still very early, and we don't know if Orton can keep it up. He's going to have Tim Tebow breathing down his neck in a few months, I'd guess. But he's outplaying Cutler right now. When a quarterback is more accurate and has the better average per pass attempt, that means he's moving the chains and getting the ball downfield. Right now, Orton's better at both.
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