cutler blew two big downfield throws to alshon tonight. yeah, i know alshon had an early drop and all that.... but what was it, third quarter? alshon had a step or two on his defender streaking to the endzone and jay overthrew the ball. a "OMFG PAY THIS MAN $100MIL RIGHT NOW" throw gets you a much needed 6 there (cuz that was during the time where the bears were intentionally grounding and going deep on 3rd-n-4 circa the giants' 40-45yd line when any non-safety score puts you into a 2 possession game that very likely would have held up in the end)
so yeah, in that regard i was actually disappointed by jay tonight... he still ended up 24/36 for 262yds and 2 TDs.... which i believe puts him @ 1630yds and 12TD 6INT thus far.... not exactly setting the world on fire, but then again jay's getting into a very very solid QB place where he's dropping ~20 fantasy points a week (25yds/point along with 4pts for a passing TD, 6 for a rushing TD (along with standard 10yds/pt scoring there) and of course -2 for each INT/fumble-lost) and yeah i know it's fantasy football and all that.... but you can still use it as a proper silhouette of what a player's doing.... basically jay's locked into a ~250-300yd/2TD groove right now.... i think jay's had one 3TD game this year and then one single-TD game to balance it out, but with 12TDs through 6 games you're looking at a 32/16 type season from jay with right around 4000 yards.... which would end up being the best seaosn since erik kramer's 1995 (unless jay technically surpassed him in one of the seasons since then)
also, it's worth pointing out that the bears have had a very impressive record with jay starting for them since he showed up in 2009. and yeah, i get that the bulk of those wins were accrued @ a time when the defense was the primary focus of the team and obviously this defense is not that defense, so if the accusation is that jay isn't up to snuff and can't ensure that a team is victorious simply because they're the team with jay cutler, well then that W/L record is prone to start to regress to the mean.... but that's yet to happen. we're 4-2 with a solid chance of going up to 5-2, which still is meaningless because we've seen this team at ~6-1 or 7-2 or whatever b4 last year's tailslide (and really, at the time i had a notion that missing the playoffs could enact some changes... but i didn't dream it'd be that broad and sweeping)
so yeah, i'm quite good with jay right now. there's clearly room for improvement on his end, and i think if this o-line continues to stay legit and the WRs develop and there's maybe even some marquess wilson sightings in 4WR sets and whatnot, i don't think there's any reason to assume that this team is going to cause dennis green to pipe up this year.... i think by the end of the season we might be in a position where we're prone to go beat a good team 40-30 or something.
simply put, especially given this franchise's history with QBs, jay has too many raw tools to give up on. he's got one hell of an arm, he's got enough mobility to have one of those broken play / well-covered ~15 yard scampers for a first down, let alone bob and weave in the pocket.... and yeah, i know, dude's 28-30 or whatever and he's been around for awhile.... but i still think the best has yet to come from cutler, alshon, and hell maybe even marshall. forte even has a chance to end up with his best overall season. and if this defense can man up and come together to hold opponents to ~20-24ppg..... i'll take my chances that the bears can score 24+ PPG and end up a 10-6/11-5 type team and get into the playoffs where the crapshoot begins.
if cutler keeps on developing with trestman, i think we'd have a shot to do something in the playoffs. hopefully we're starting to enter the golden age of the chicago bears offense.... that is, unless all of the meatballin' FIRE-N-PASHIN guys get their wish and the bears don't pay $100+mil for "that jagoff" and we go and get kyle orton v2.0 chucking balls 5ft over the head of wide open jumping receivers.... committing to run the ball ~30+ times a game, even with a 2.2ypc average... and then you can trestman after a 6-10 season, of course!
_________________ Curious Hair wrote: Les Grobstein's huge hog is proof that God has a sense of humor, isn't it?
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