Its pretty hard not to love Cutler though. He's the exact right kind of gunslangin' ******* for TV.

agree with this. Pretty much comes down to how much you value Romo's ability edge vs how much you value Cutler's youth.

A ton of the posts in this thread seem like recorded arguments between the 2 parties responsible for starting this thread. Thanks for everyone's contributions.. now I can see why we weren't able to solve this alone. (and may not still)

Love the stat / quote about Orton in Denver and Chicago after he and Cutler swapped places. Very rarely do you get a QB for QB swap in the NFL where you can see someone in the other's bubble. Even though it's not perfect as teams change a ton year to year, it's a solid point for comparison.

I think Romo's command of the offense and football knowledge are > Cutler. I also dislike Cutler for his negative attitude, even though my Bears fan friend swears the locker room loves him, I cannot imagine that kind of whiner, blame-others mentality wins over his teammates.

I'm really surprised it's this close.. Romo's lifetime stats for PASS/INT ratio, TDs, pretty much every category are better than Cutlers. I think the clutch gene costs him, even though Cutler hasn't done much to earn that himself.

Man thats absurd! Had no clue Cutler was so big.

meh, this seems like you just have a massive dislike for him. i follow him closer than anyone and he pretty much always shoulders the blame for his shortcomings. he also is an extremely hard worker, there have been stories about him flying by himself back to chicago after tough road losses and immediately watching film to correct mistakes. id imagine that kind of stuff wins his teammates over regardless of what they think of him personally.

Lol fringe top 5

E. Manning
P. Manning
Brees
Brady
Rodgers
Ryan
RG3

All >>>>>> Romo and it's not close. There are plenty more that I think would be arguable (Rape, Cutlah, etc)

If I was starting a franchise; all of ^^^^ plus...

Wilson
Smith (yep)
Kaep
Cam
Luck

I would take over Romo

There is this weird wasteland of QBs who are some combo of being good enough to not cut for 10 years, not good enough to ever get much worthwhile in trade in a down year, but bad enough to where they will always need a good supporting cast to do anything worthwhile.

I feel like guys like Romo, Cutler, Flacco, and some others likely fall in this category. It is a wasteland though. Any QB significantly worse than these guys doesn't matter because it's an easy decision to just start over after 2-3 years and try again. Anyone noticeably better you just keep until they retire. The wasteland QBs probably get their GM's jimmies pretty rustled.

Seriously think about right now if you are Ozzie Newsome. How is your peace of mind with Flacco? What is your long-term plan for him? Honestly he probably hopes Flactard falls off a figurative cliff next year like Sanchize has done. That way the decision is easy. Sanchize was in this wasteland area coming into this year but now they know they can just cut him and move on.

You would start a franchise wanting Alex Smith as your QB?

Solid troll.

cutler was the QB of a team that got a bye and won a playoff game just 2 years ago. is that not worthwhile? this was also a team with a bottom 3 OL and a WR core of johnny knox, earl bennett, and devin hester. i know their D was good but cutler was an extremely valuable player to that team that had serious title equity. i think you're underrating this tier of QBs. its not like cutler/romo/flacco have 0 SB equity this year or anything.

also, if romo is in this group then schaub belongs there too. romo>>schaub.

Eli probably in the wasteland group as well being "only" a top 10 QB. Maybe I'm missing the clutch stats.

I'm not saying they have zero SB equity. They have just enough where you basically have to stick with them probably longer than you really should.

I'm not sure I'm qualifying things right but obviously the theory stands to reason.

There are guys that you unquestionably keep around as long as possible (Brady, Manning, Brees, Rodgers, etc.)

At the other end there are guys who are warm bodies but you know within 1-3 years that they are not your franchise QB. Or if they hang around it's only because the dudes you keep trying to replace them with are somehow not any better. Somewhere between you've got dudes who are probably good enough to start for 6-10 years but a lot of people likely aren't thrilled about it.

And yeah I probably put Schaub in this category too. He's going to be here until he retires or until he kinda sucks. But he's not a world-beater who can take over a game like the best can and get hot over 3 games and ship a rang. He needs plenty of help and a good system that fits his skillset.

As a Texans' fan I am basically resigned to the fact that we probably know for sure we won't have an elite QB here for the next 4 years. But at the same time we shouldn't trade or cut him and gamble in the draft or with someone like TJ Yates or Case Keenum. You can't let a guy like Schaub, Cutler, Romo, Flacco go until they've given you more than enough rope to hang them with.

As mentioned Romo went like #6 in the SE draft this year but that draft was for this year only and not for future years if I recall. The draft results would have been quite different if it was for this year and beyond.

Romo is a fringe top 5 QB this year and he has been for several years now. He also wouldn't go in the top 10 if there was a "starting a team, draft QB's" thread because he's 32 years old and there's too many up and coming guys under age 25 right now.

If starting a team right now I'd take Romo over Cutler. He is just better than Cutler and he might be able to play another 5-6 years at a reasonable level (higher than peak Cutler at least) before it's time to replace him.

I mean Flacco was a made FG (dropped catch?..hard to remember) against the Patriots from being a coin flip away from winning the Super Bowl last year. Yes, it makes things a lot easier to have a HOF signal caller but not sure you just give up on every guy that needs some help/run good to ship it.

Neither of them have enough mental toughness to take a team deep in the playoffs unless the rest of the team is well above average. I'd rather pull a name out of a hat than take either of these guys.

At the beginning of the year both RG3 and Luck (hell, WILson?) all were drafted in SE lower than Romo. Right now they all go before him in a franchise draft.

Define fringe, people.

Bears went to NFCCG with the WOAT offensive line, if that counts.

You aren't even reading what I said. I didn't say you dump these guys, that's why I said they are in that wasteland area. Guys like Dilfer and Brad Johnson shipped a rang. These guys can all win rangs.

Sorry, didn't associate wasteland area with a guy that has plenty of Super Bowl equity in the right situation.

Use whatever word you want to use for the middle group of QBs who are just good enough to hang around as a starter for 8 years. I said wasteland as I put about 8 seconds of thought into it. "Middle ground", "barren land", "Jerryworld", what-have-you.

Wasn't that the game Cutler finished by pouting on the sidelines? But, yeah, I should have said to the SB.

Cutler got hurt, kept playing. Then later medics wouldn't let him back in. Call it "pouting" if you want.

romo so underrated. lol at hanging around as a middle ground qb when u are ridiculously consistent at the top of the group behind brady/rodgers/peyton/brees for 7 straight years. this is complete eye test and mayb casual fan but he could be even better if the cowboys just went shotgun/spread/no huddle a lot saints/pats style the last couple of years. again mayb complete confirmation bias but seems like the boys just roll down the field whenever they do it

4th all time qbrating behind arod/young/brady 4th all time ANY/A behind arod/peyton/brady, im sure those stats suck but i doubt they suck enough to the point hes not criminally underappreciated

i dont think youre making the argument u think you are

lol at comparing romo to schaub and flacco. you'd have to watch the games on acid to think that's reasonable.