All Spotlights • Jay Cutler Player Page • CHI Projections • QB Projections • QB Rankings • CHI Team Report

Spotlight - QB Jay Cutler, Chicago Bears

Posted on 7/11, exclusive to Footballguys.com

Jason Wood's Thoughts

Jay Cutler grew up a Chicago Bears fan, but he never had reason to think his NFL fortunes would ever coincide with his childhood fandom. After all, teams simply don't let franchise passers go. It's so rare to find a true franchise cornerstone that no organization would be foolish enough to let one go in his prime. Cutler will be a Denver Bronco for life. Right?

Yikes, if you're a Broncos fan reading this let me apologize for the flippant recap but let's be honest, this offseason was shocking. Regardless of where you place the blame, the simple truth is Josh McDaniels and Jay Cutler couldn't co-exist. The Bears traded two 1sts, a 3rd, a 5th and Kyle Orton for the 26-year old star. In Chicago expectations are sky high. For years, Bears fans have thought they were only a QB away from Super Bowl contention.

Jay Cutler is the best quarterback in modern Bears history

Sid Luckman is a Hall of Famer and I'm not going to try to compare his achievements in the 1940s to what offensive numbers of today's game. But Luckman's career ended in 1950, which means Jay Cutler is the best QB the Windy City has seen in almost 60 years. Don't believe me? Take a look at the Bears top-5 passers of the modern era:

1. Jim Harbaugh ('87-'93) -- 89 games, 58.2% completion, 11,567 yards, 50 TDs, 56 Ints
2. Jim McMahon ('82-'88) -- 66 games, 57.8% completion, 11,203 yards, 67 TDs, 56 Ints
3. Erik Kramer ('94-'98) -- 49 games, 58.6% completion, 10,582 yards, 63 TDs, 45 Ints
4. Billy Wade ('61-'66) -- 59 games, 54.5% completion, 9,958 yards, 68 TDs, 66 Ints
5. Ed Brown ('54-'61) -- 98 games, 48.7% completion, 9,698 yards, 63 TDs, 88 Ints

Compare that to Jay Cutler's career numbers:

• Jay Cutler ('06-'08) -- 37 games, 62.5% completion, 9,024 yards, 54 TDs, 37 Ints

But just because Jay Cutler is the best Chicago QB in generations doesn't mean he's a great bet to lead your fantasy team to a championship. In fact, there are a lot of reasons to think that Jay Cutler will be more valuable to the Bears than he will be to fantasy owners.

The Offensive Line -- The Bears offensive line only allowed 29 sacks last year (13th best) and signed Orlando Pace to improve the left tackle position this offseason, but that can't compare to the Broncos OL, which allowed a league-low 12 sacks.

Receiving Corps -- It's fair to say the Bears receivers will look better with Jay Cutler throwing to them, and Earl Bennett and the pair of rookies are particularly attractive sleepers. But it's equally fair to say that Brandon Marshall is demonstrably better than any Bears receiver and Eddie Royal may be, too.

Run/Pass Balance -- The Broncos threw 620 passes last year while the Bears have averaged 500 pass attempts during Lovie Smith's tenure. It's easier to think the Bears will throw more with Cutler under center, but realistically he'll still throw fewer than 550 passes.

Offensive Coaching -- Mike Shanahan is a 2-time Super Bowl champion and offensive guru, while Bears OC Ron Turner is, shall we say, decidedly less accomplished. Turner is infamous for being an ultra-conservative play-caller which doesn't play into Jay Cutler's strengths.

Positives

• Jay Cutler is a strong-armed, accurate passer in his prime
• The Bears have above average receiving options at TE and RB
• The Bears offensive line is above average, with depth

Negatives

• Ron Turner is a conservative play-caller
• The Bears receivers aren't as good as the Broncos
• Expect the Bears to have a more balanced run/pass ratio

Final Thoughts

Jay Cutler is one of the best young quarterbacks in the league. The fact the Bears were able to acquire him, in his prime, was a coup and sets the Bears up as a title contender for years to come. Even though Jay Cutler should win more games in Chicago than he did in Denver, it's not clear he's going to be a better fantasy player. The Bears run a more conservative offense, maintain a more balanced run/pass ratio, have a less imposing offensive line, and don't have proven WRs on the roster. Cutler should elevate the Bears offense to new levels, but the aforementioned factors should crimp his upside. Cutler could be a top-5 fantasy passer on talent alone, but more likely slots as a rock solid QB2 who should finish in the 10-12 range this year.

Quotations from the Message Board Thread

Jedi Knight:
I actually believe Cutler will be a little under-valued this year. Most of the people I talk to see him dropping to about 15th due to the lack of receivers in Chicago. I'm a big believer in the QB makes the receiver more than the receiver making the QB, and I think the Chicago offense will be somewhat of a surprise this year. Even though the jury's still out on Hester, having Bennett on the other side will be comforting to him as a receiver he has played with before. Plus, Olsen can be a great TE.

TheDirtyWord:
Cutler had 616 passing attempts last year. Do you realize that in the history of the NFL, only 5 QBs have ever had more in a single season (Brees, Bledsoe, Moon, Marino, Gannon)?

Fact of the matter is that Cutler's YPA was a respectable, but not great 7.35 YPA. And that was with...

1) Brandon Marshall, one of the Top 10 WR's in the NFL
2) An emerging #2 in Eddie Royal
3) A offensive genius as HC

Now Chicago has been more of a passing team than you would think. The number of pass attempts (not including sacks) under Lovie Smith.

2008: 528
2007: 569
2006: 514
2005: 418
2004: 471

Consider that 2004, their leading QB was Chad Hutchinson and 2005 it was 4th round rookie Kyle Orton and you understand why those pass attempts were as low as they were. But once they got some degree of competency at the position, they did put it up at a decent rate. But with a solid running game, you will not see the Bears top 550 attempts.

Turning your attention to the Bears WR's. Devin Hester is starting to emerge, but he's probably no better than a solid #2 WR. Between Earl Bennett, Juaquin Iglesias, Rashied Davis...the Bears are still doing alot of test driving at the position. Having a QB of Cutler's caliber should help in some respects, but again...are we overstaing Cutler's ability here? Wasn't he a borderline QB1 this time last year? Isn't the only reason he put up a 4500 yard season was because he threw the ball the 9th most times in NFL history? Fact is, his TD percentage went down in 2008.

So, count me as a laggard to the Cutler bandwagon (although this does not appear to be ground breaking sentiment). He'll be good for Chicago, but he'll be outproduced by at least 7-8 QB's.

Just Win Baby:
Compared to last season, Cutler will almost certainly be less effective this year. Consider:

1. Cutler will play behind a worse OL, so he will have a bit less time to make plays downfield.
2. He will have a less talented set of targets.
3. Cutler is in a new offense.
4. It seems fair to assume that Turner will not do as good a job with the playcalling in the passing game as Shanahan, and he'll presumably be more conservative.
5. As someone posted earlier, the weather will probably be worse in Chicago than Denver.

Banger:
Let me start by saying that I have serious man-love for Cutler. I think he's one of the best QB's in the league and Denver is going to kick themselves for a decade. I think going to Chicago from Denver is going to change his stats a bit...Chicago is going to have a much better defense than Denver which should mean more TOP, shorter fields, fewer attempts, fewer yards but more red zone action and potentially more TD's. He won't be playing from behind as much so he won't have to be so one dimensional and force passes so I think his int's will go down.

His weapons are not good by any stretch but he does have good TEs to lean on and Bennett could be dark horse (not a Hester believer). Good QBs can make good WRs from average ones (look at Favre and what he did for mediocre wrs) and I think Cutler with his arm and accuracy can put the ball into very tight windows and make average players look a lot better than they are.

Dr. Octopus:
It's quite possible for Cutler to have a better year at QB in 2009 without putting up the gaudy stats he put up in 2008. In Chicago with a better running game and a better defense - and likely a few more bad weather games - he just will not have the opportunity to throw for 4,500 again this season (r at least the Bears should hope for that to be the case). I don't think the drop off in talent at the WR position will be as drastic as people will make it out to be and I think we'll see players like Hester, Bennett, Davis and Olsen step up and show what they are capable of and surprise some people. Its just like I said, coaching philosophy and game situation will dictate Cutler putting up the ball much less than he had to last season.

Jay Cutler Projections