Blinded by the Light

Jay Cutler is a baby
and he got traded tonight
Blinded by the light
the Bears gave up too much for Jay
and we got the better end of the trade
Blinded by the Light

So it's official! The Denver Broncos have traded Jay Cutler and a 5th round pick to the Chicago Bears for, count them, TWO first round picks AND a third AND Kyle Orton. I love this trade and I think we came out as the winners and the Bears will ultimately regret doing this. My phone has been ringing off the hook and all my fellow Broncos fans have been yelling "Cutler for Kyle Orton!?!?! Are you kidding me?? Man we screwed up." Now, to the untrained eye I can see their displeasure but let me break to you why Jay Cutler is overrated:

1) If everyone would stop jerking off to Cutlers arm strength and actually look into the numbers then Cutler is nothing special. Cutler was 16th (that's dead middle of the pact) in the league in QB rating. Guys like Shaun Hill, Seneca Wallace, Matt Schaub and rookie Matt Ryan all had better ratings... He was also 15th in the league in completion percentage, 8th in touchdowns (despite throwing more then any QB last year except Brees) and a blistering 18th in yards per attempt. So what did Jay lead the league in? Well, he was 2nd in the league in interceptions, right behind the interception king Brett Favre, and he was 3rd the league in total passing yards. But trust me folks, don't buy into total passing yards as a productive stat because it is just an indication that he threw a lot. He was second in the league with 616 pass attempts and that came partly because A) we had a very good passing offensive line B) we had no running game and C) we were always playing from behind so we always had to throw. Just to put this into perspective, if rookie Matt Ryan (who's an average NFL QB) would have throw the ball 616 times then his total passing yards would have been projected around 5013 yards. Not to mention that Jay Cutler had an Offensive line that only allowed a league leading 7 total sacks all season and a wide receiving core that arguable had the best one, two, three punch in Marshall, Royal, and Stokley.

2) Cutler is going to exposed in Chicago. You throw Cutler on a Bears ball club that has the worse wide receiver corps in the league and a questionable O-line and Cutler is going to struggle. Jay is a gambler and that’s the last thing the Bears need right now with their strong defense leading the way. Here an interesting stat to look at: during windy games Jay Cutler has a QB rating of 74.2, 55 % completion percentage and a 1:1 TD to INT ratio. Have fun in the Windy City Jay. Not to mention that Chicago is the second coldest city to play in right behind Green Bay. Especially in the playoffs, where history has shown that the average Bears game temperature is right around 10 degrees fahrenheit. Jay doesn't play well in cold weather. In games less than 21 degrees, Cutler is 0-2 with a 72.4 QB rating, 55 percent completion percentage and has never thrown a touchdown. Brrrrr.

Before the Orton injury last year, Cutler and Orton put up nearly identical numbers.
Kyle Orton, 2008 through seven games: 1, 669 yards; 10 TDs; 4 ints (5 games without an interception); 143 completions; 230 attempts; 62.2 completion %; 7.26 per attempt; 4-3 team record.

Jay Cutler, 2008 through seven games: 1, 862 yards: 13 TDs; 7 interceptions (2 games without an interception); 163 completions; 254 attempts; 64.2 completion %; 7.33 per attempt; 4-3 team record.

3) Cutler is not a leader. Period. Leaders are born, not made, and Cutler wasn't born a leader. He constantly lets his emotions get the best of him and it would get in the way of his play. How many times did you see him yelling at receivers for dropped balls or pouting by himself at the end of the bench when he should be firing up his teammates? Or how about overthrowing touchdown passes to Eddie Royal and Brandon "sure hands" Stokley in the final minutes of the Bills game that would have put the Broncos in the playoffs?

This whole month long "he said, she said" saga with the organization further proves my point that Jay Cutler is too emotionally unstable to lead an NFL franchise. You can't go cry and then lock yourself into your room when your names appears in trade talks. That's what Jay Cutler did and now he is being shipped to a big city that doesn't take that sort of crap. Broncos fans are very passionate but they are also very mild. Bears fans are very passionate but will throw you under the bus the minute you show signs of weakness. They did it to Rex Grossman and they will do it to Cutler. If football fans were hot sauces then the Bears would be Mad Dog 357 Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce and Broncos fans would be the mild sauce at Taco Bell. If he doesn't grow up then he won't last in Chicago.



If he can't keep his cool in a post game interview after a game that didn't even mean much then how is he going to keep his cool when a playoff game is on the line? This is clearly not the guy I want in my huddle. Grow up.

Enough of Cutler, let's do what I do best and talk Bronco football. Now there are some things in this world that I just will never understand: trigonometry, The Big Bang Theory, George Karl, clouds, The Jonas Brothers, and the Davinci Code to name a few but I just don't get how we ended also landing Orton and third round pick. Not that I am complaining on bit but all the talks that I heard were for just either 1 first round pick and a player or possibly just 2 first round picks. But the Bears then throw in a quality third rounder and a quality veteran, SYSTEM, quarterback in Orton. I'm jumping for joy over here.

Sure Orton isn’t a long term solution but he is a mentally tough QB that can thrive in a McDaniels system. He won’t be anything too special but with if he can fully grasp the system and make good reads then our O-line and wide outs will allow him to move the ball effectively. Another thing I like is that Orton throws a softer ball then Cutler. Why is this a good thing? Well, because softer balls are easier to catch and when you have a wide receiver like Brandon Marshall who drops a lot of passes (third most drops in the league last year) then you want a QB with a Snuggles tissue soft touch. Ask Roddy White how much he benefited from Michael Vick's laser arm leaving the team:

Roddy White stats:
2 years with Vick: 952 yards and 3 TD's
2 years without Vick: 2584 yards and 13 TD's

And unlike Cutler, Kyle Orton is a winner. Orton is 22-13 in his career and has led a team to the Super Bowl. Yes, I know the Bears wonderful defense had a lot to with that but the fact is that Orton didn't screw up games. He's a system QB that follows instructions well and doesn't make high risk throws. That's exactly why Josh McDaniels was targeting Orton in this trade.


Plus, Orton is a mans man. He's a neck beard wearing, Jack Daniels swizzling, girl banging man. Lindsay Lohan even said he was "super hot" and she herself is "super hot" and Orton is not "super hot" by male standards. Playa? I think so. Meanwhile, Cutler had none of those traits. Cutler was the dorky virgin kid who sat by himself at lunch eating a PB & J with the crust cut off while he sat on his laptop playing War Craft. War Craft playing - PB&J eating - virgins don't translate into winners.
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Finally, I love this trade because of the picks we got. We have FOUR first round picks in the next two years and at least three of them will be used on defensive players. Do you know how many former first round picks are on our starting defense right now? Three and those three are our best defensive players in Champ Bailey, DJ Williams, and Brian Dawkins. So building our defense, while McDaniels develops a young QB, sets us up for a promising future. Thus is why I wasn't Blinded By the Light of Jay Cutler and thought this trade worked out in our favor.