A 1.8% to 5.1% sack%. I think it goes hand in hand.

He doesn't look clueless to me, he looks like a guy running for his life five steps into every seven-step drop. When the line is so bad that you don't have time to properly set before you throw, it's hard to throw well.
You realize there are multiple factors in performance, right? Clady is very good, but Cutler is better at avoiding sacks than Orton is, which is why his numbers are worse this year.

But how many of these were Orton's fault?

Top is Cutler with Bears, bottom is obviously Orton. Put it all out there.(rush att last season 434, this season 317 with identical y/a)

Aaron Rodgers runs for his life and I don't think I've seen him look Cutler-rific yet. Yes I know he's got better receivers and defense.

But still, when he's running for his life he seems to not manage to throw over 1.5 interceptions a game.

Also I don't know if David Carr was ever this terrible in Houston. He was way safer and less gunslingery than Cutler so his game was way more vanilla but I don't know that it was any worse. He just played more smallball. And most people agree that Carr was ****ing awful, bad O-Line notwithstanding.

This is the rebuttal? In that case you win.

Aaron Rodgers is a top tier QB with an exceptionally high sack%

David Carr has a historically high sack% with similar int% to Cutler.

Edit: Interesting enough Carr's 2006 season is pretty average. Heh.

This helps but it doesn't tell us about how many sacks in 2009 were Orton's fault. We'd literally have to watch game film of each sack, and even then we probably wouldn't know, because we wouldn't have a basis for who had what assignments.

Sacks are wayyy better than interceptions. And Rodgers on third down is amazing.

I just don't recall last year when people were saying "Cutler is a commodity" "A GM should trade his entire draft to get him" "25" "Pro Bowl" "Diabeeetus", etc. anybody really saying the same things about Rodgers.

Yet, only months later he's thought of as "top tier" and Cutler is lookinig more "slightly-above-average starter".

This is why there are a lot of terrible GMs out there who do things like trade entire draft classes for a guy who turns out to not be who they thought he'd be.

You didn't follow the NFL Modern Draft thread then. Because plenty of people were extremely high on Rodgers last year.

Cutler is a much better and more talented QB than Orton who played on a good offensive team with talent and a sick OC/HC.

The Bears who were a team with plenty of holes, not a ton of offensive talent and a idiot HC/OC gave up a ton to get Cutler.

Those holes + lack of draft picks now equal Cutler being a better QB than Orton who sucks in large part because there is not a ton of talent around him and his weaknesses are being exposed more due to that(forcing balls, not taking what the defense gives him, not reading defenses well, pouting etc).

The Bears aren't going to get much better baring some sick late round draft picks or crafty FA signings/trades and/or improving at OC/HC.

So basically the Bears are lol.

ya ill cut them some slack for losing urlacher, but they really were not a team that was just a QB away from being a serious contender

Signing Orlando Waste in the offseason and not going after Tra Thomas or someone else was really the death-knell of the o-line. Also, LOL Frank Omiyale

No but I believe the Bears at least understand that their fanbase will for the most part be patient and allow them to put together a team and having pieces like Chris Williams and Jay Cutler will help. I understand they won 9 games last season but I didn't see them as a true contender, rebuilding takes patience and as long as they stick to BAP philosophy over the next few years, they will have a QB going into his prime and hopefully a franchise LT, a WR and RB that can help.

Edit: Bears passing on Tra Thomas, especially considering Thomas' deal vs Pace's, has hurt them tremendously. It would have made a tremendous difference on that team and the Jaguars benefited greatly from Thomas being on the roster to help plug in while Monroe gets better.

Rodgers' receivers are much better! And, accordingly, he's putting up much better passing numbers. He's also leading the league in sacks, and putting up an unsustainably low INT% (1.4). I'm not sure what the point of this is, because even if Aaron Rodgers is definitely > Jay Cutler, that still doesn't mean Jay Cutler is bad, or even "not a top-10 QB", because Rodgers is very good.

Those are last year's numbers. Rodgers has improved, but I suspect if Cutler were still in Denver, he would have as well.

There is a correlation here.

There is also a difference. One is better than the other. Cutler chooses to do the bad one time and time again, even when he knows full well he doesn't have talent out there. Rodgers chooses to take the less-bad option, and not undermine his team with poor decision making.

Rogers will likely be the best QB in the league in 5 years, while Cutler will have to settle for merely being top 5. As a Bears fan, I can live with that.

No guarantees for either.

You could have a young stud QB who is drafted.

You also have Rivers, Schaub (injuries), Eli, Romo, Flacco, Ben, Stafford, Ryan, Sanchize who will all be 35 and below and there are chances that Manning, Brees and Brady are still playing.

yeah it was hyperbole, and more about how highly I think of Rogers than how I feel about cutler

They were thought of like this before the season iirc. Most people thought the Cutler trade made them a contender in the division and NFC.

O-line was worse than expected. The regression of Kruetz who aged about 10years in a year, Omiyale was worse than I thought he would be even after a really bad preseason and Pace was truly washed up, not just injured. This has shut down Forte's runs up the middle.

Also the defense that relies very heavily on their linebackers was a revolving door at that position the whole year.

Of course complete and total lack of coaches that can adjust to these problems, or a "defensive mastermind" that has not evolved his defense since 2005, or a front office who trades away their highest draft pick for a defensive end who is worse than the three stiffs you've been rotating the whole year, has not helped.

Cutler's personality has not been the best for the situation. He knows his OC is an idiot and will not be there next year. He does seem to be trying to expedite this decline the last few weeks with some sort of monkey tilt where he will just run the dumbass play that was called instead of trying to adjust.

There are a ton of problems with this team this year. Cutler is about 15th on that list. Even though ZOMG CUTTTTLAHHHHHH HE THROWS PICKS!!!!!

I'm not saying it wasn't wrong only that people believed it. There should be no apologizing for Cutler this year, he shares the blame for the terribleness of the Bears. He's playing hideously. Was he good in 2008? Sure. Will he play better in the future? I should think so.

they def were a contender for the division/playoffs, but lets be honest. we all expected the vikings to win it, and that the packers and bears would have a shot. i thought the bears would be a solid team but def not a super bowl contender

This was well before Favre ever decided to join Minny. We didn't all expect the Vikes to take it without competition. Cutler was supposed to make the offense respectable to go along with an upper level defense. Packers were a young team with loads of talent expected to improve. Even after Favre not many thought this helped the Vikes too much.

Does anybody know what preseason odds for each to win the division?

the packers ran really bad last year and were alot better than their record

and i may be a minority here, but at no point was i fooled by favres shenanigans. i expected him to go back to the vikings the entire time. i guess it was the way he announced to jet fans that he was retiring, on the phone, in such a monotone voice. the past with the packers you could see he was always truly debating about it and being moved to tears, and this was just nothing even remotely close to that

after "retiring," once he asked the jets for his unconditional release, i didnt think there was any doubt about it