Busy day for Bears

[mantal]

Well, if you really must know, all this arguing I do here actually helps me become a better writer, which is good when you go to college and have Humanities requirements.

...it's like practice.

Well I guess that makes sense. Since I'm a better writer, you think I can get your job?...

j/k

[frash.exe]

Well I guess that makes sense. Since I'm a better writer, you think I can get your job?...

j/k

It's not up to me lol

[mantal]

It's not up to me lol

Take care brother...

[Brandon]

I'm not arguing about the sack total I agreed with you on that part, I argued your allusion to that defenses blitzed more against Jay Cutler to try and get more pressure on him. Cutler was actually blitzed less than Delhomme.

Delhomme isn't the best example to use because he is usually passing in situations that are strictly passing situations. Jay was passing on both. Btw interesting stat, Jake was better against the blitz than Cutler. Funny thing that.

That question was basically asked on a "here and now" basis. 5 years ago Brett Favre could have thrown 500 passes with ease, yet now his shoulder gets tired by game 11. Also don't forget the more you throw the harder it is to maintain a good passer rating and not throw picks.

Fine, we don't know if he can or not but I'll continue to use this year's stats since you refuse to accept anything else. By the way this will be where things go badly for you.

Ben made a mistake and he got over it and he's still a hell of a damn good QB. It's not all about how many non-answers you give in a press conference it's also about what you do off the field. That's why people have so many problems with draft prospects who have criminal records, etc. Roethlisberger had a hiccup so he's not perfect but that doesn't make him any less of a leader or a team player.

Ben is one of the best leaders in the NFL, I'm not sure where you're trying to go with this one.

Not really, I mean the only thing that could've been hard was the distance, but then again I saw 43 year old Vinny Testaverde toss a pass that got 44 yards of air off the couch (not even the bench) to Steve Smith. Moose had solid separation to allow the pass not to be defensed either. He was open more than Tyree.

Jake was making that throw while running, throwing it to a receiver who was moving, all while trying not to be crushed by the Pats linebackers who were in his face.

blitz=/= pressure

Of course teams are going to blitz more when they play 3-4 defense, which Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Dallas, and Cleveland which the Giants all played. However, it doesn't mean he faced less pressure.

Tony Romo 23.8%

Matt Ryan 18.9%

Jeff Garcia 17.8%

Jason Campbell 17.4%

Drew Brees 16.9%

Eli Manning 14.6%

Jay Cutler 14%

Donovan McNabb 13.8%

Jake Delhomme 12.5%

these are the pass attempts under pressure as a percentage of a total. Jake Delhomme faced the LEAST pressure per pass attempt, yet he only exceeded Jason Campbell in passer rating. Jay Cutler, while not going down nearly as much as these other guys, also felt more pressure himself. (Lol Romo, that's like 1 out of 4 pass attempts the defense is in his face)

So with the other QB's in his division he faced less pressure than any with the exception of McNabb who played against the Bears and Atlanta who were not as successful (combined) than getting to the QB compared to us and the Panthers. Still it should prove with little doubt that the Giants have a much much better line than most teams in the NFL, especially against the pass.

Has Delhomme even been really put to the test in a press conference?

You liked to bring up the playoff game but don't remember his press conference afterwards:

http://www.nfl.com/videos/arizona-cardinals/09000d5d80e07909/Panthers-postgame-press-conference

These are actual questions asked of Eli Manning after the playoff loss to the Eagles. The "wind" problem has always been a criticism against Manning, as well as that he can't do it without Plaxico (though, if you do the research you'll find that Manning actually had a better passer's rating without Plaxico). I either read "wind" or "minus Plaxico" in the sports section like every day that season so it's something the press was really, how should I say, pressing about.

EVERY article before this season about Delhomme mentioned "will he come back from TJ surgery" and most didn't think he could. Every draft article says the Panthers have to draft a new QB. Every article since the season has focused entirely on his playoff game and ignores anything else he's done. Trust me Jake doesn't get treated lightly by the media. No the local media isn't as hard on him, but the national media is that much harder.

I can't believe you're comparing the racial hurdle Warren Moon had to jump over and Warner's playing in ARENA league like Delhomme's struggle was just as bad as theirs. Why was he held back in New Orleans? Because he couldn't outperform Billy Joe Tolliver?

In a different era Warren Moon would've been a first round draft pick, all the things he did in college.

Fine, I'll leave off Moon and Warner. Let me ask you this, who would you rather have starting for you: Jeff Blake, Aaron Brooks or Jake Delhomme? I'm sorry but the Saints are ineptly run and that's why he sat and that's why he left. The fans were BEGGING for him to start over Brooks, many times chanting "we want Jake!". You have to admit he was better than any QB they had on the roster while he was there. The Saints also only gave him a chance because he was a local player, and the fans wanted him there.

You tell me, because that would actually be favorable for those pitchers, as hard as it is to believe.

Delhomme's recovery took about 10 months, so he's just about on par with that average recovery rate. Plus, factor in that pitchers throw way more in a season than Delhomme's 414 pass attempts, which was just about the least in the league among starting QBs in average throws per game.

Footballs are much heavier (about 3.5x) with a much harder shape to grip and relative arm strength required to throw one is much higher.

No I think you have the problem here. You really think Delhomme is the gold standard of leadership in the league? You haven't admitted any QB you think has better leadership, and based on what anyway? What criteria are you using exactly? I'm going to ask you now, do you even know what you mean when you say "intangibles" or is this just some undefined yet understood term to you and you think that's good enough for you to present it in this argument?

Intangibles are things like how well someone does in the clutch, how someone does when under pressure, the decision making a QB has, etc. Jake isn't the paragon of leadership but he is EXTREMELY good at being a leader. He knows when to be hard on a teammate and knows when he was at fault, his team plays substantially better when he's under center than not. Guys like Warner, Roethlisberger, and Brady are all great leaders as well, but who is best is very hard to put down.

Yes that 12 play, 83-yard touchdown drive was all the defense's work. The Giants took possession with two minutes and change left in the game, and drove down the field and scored the touchdown, leaving 35 seconds, a very manageable figure for the defense, for Tom Brady to come back.

It's obvious to me you have no concept of game situations. If the Patriots start scoring I don't think the Giants still only score 17 points. Adjustments are made to get more yards. Likewise, If the Patriots didn't score 32 points in the superbowl I doubt we still score 29. I think John Fox doesn't open the playbook up and sticks with his running game, like he had done all year long, and still does (keeps the game at least somewhat close no matter how high or low the score is).

See this is my point. The defense held one of the all time best NFL offenses to only 14 points. Give me a break, if the defense didn't perform to an exceptionally high standard like they did, the game wouldn't have been won by the Giants. I never said the drives or scores would have been the same, but thank you for putting words in my mouth.

As for the Panthers, they would have been in a more comfortable position if the defense had held up, and Fox had the playbook pretty open to start with. We ran a Coryell offense, which we still do in a way, which is a big play offense not just a running offense.

Next up, why Eli is overrated.

[Brandon]

Eli is the benefactor of a system which doesn't really require him to make tough throws as much, whereas the Panthers play a fairly high risk offense in contrast. Don't believe me? 78% of Eli's passes were thrown to targets at less than 10 yards and that counted for 56.1% of his total yardage. Jake on the otherhand only had 63% of his passes thrown to targets under 10yds and only 41.4% of his yardage was from said passes.

However, when you start looking at the actually hard passes (over 10 yards) we find that Jake's quarterback rating is a massive 98.58 and Eli's is only 82.04. This is with about 152 and 158 attempts respectively, so it's not like there was a disparity in reference points.

How about when facing the blitz? Jake had a 92.0 quarterback rating and only threw interceptions while being blitzed 2.1% of the time. Eli however had a 74.4 quarterback rating and threw for interceptions 3.7% of the time, a 76% greater likelihood of him turning the ball over while the blitz is coming. He also had a higher rate of sacks in those situations than Jake, despite only being pressured slightly more often than Jake was. Oh and let's not forget Jake took advantage of blitzes with 8.54 yards per attempt while Eli only managed 6.35. On a 3rd an long when teams are going to blitz, who would YOU rather have under center?

It's not just when blitzed that Jake is better under pressure, in December when the games mean a lot more Eli only eeked out a frankly pathetic 69.8qbr while conversely Jake had a 96.2qbr. How about when the games are close? 84.5 for Eli vs 96.1 for Jake. Pretty consistent under pressure yes?

Okay okay how about general consistency. Jake had 9 games with over a 90qbr while Eli only had 5, so Jake was more consistent at having a good performance. True Jake had more worse games (3vs2) but that's one of the few areas in which Jake falls down to Eli. How about the ability to keep up with the defensive changes the opponent is making and being able to make your own changes to be better? In the second half Jake was 7% better than his first half performance while Eli was 6% WORSE than his first half, despite having a great running game that wore down defenses.

So basically just looking at cumulative statistics Eli appears better on paper, but in reality he is more the benefactor of a passing system which doesn't require him to work as hard as Jake does. Even though Jake doesn't throw the ball as much he is called upon to make much tougher passes when he does, all with less attempts to build up a rhythm.

[Brandon]

Mods please kill this thread. Brandon likes Delhomme and Raging Bull likes Eli...end of story.

It's a lot less fun that way. Good debates are rare in the internet world. *shrug*

Wow, why are we breaking down Jake, Eli and others to prove anything about Cutler, he's got an arm, period. It's whether his leadership is there, period. Chicago is happy, period, let it die...

I mean seriously, did you guys just get into a huge pissing contest between Jake and Eli to try to prove a point about Cutler, seriously?...

It kind of just evolved into that sort of discussion about Jake and Eli, these sort of things have a bad habit of happening.

I just rather like debating, keeps me sharp, forces to me learn and tests my reasoning abilities. Plus you guys get to laugh at us so it's win-win.

[frash.exe]

I could spend 3 hours researching to respond to this mutant creature from the black lagoon that used to be a thread, but there are logical explanations to some of the things you posted about the long ball, such as the fact that Air Coryell is a play action offense which requires a good running game to set up the pass to fool defenders and force the safeties to play closer to the line, good mid-deep field passing, and two speedy receivers to get downfield as quickly as possible. Smitty is a great contributor in that regard. They play in two different systems, however, Eli Manning's strength is Delhomme's weakness in short field passing. Eli was 92 from 1-10 yards versus Delhomme's 73. Manning is also better in goal line situations, and this is where they asked him to make a lot of passes where the defense doesn't have much field to cover (13-4 TD-int ratio). Delhomme is much worse with a 3-6 TD-int ratio (though these INTs could be out of the red zone). Also don't forget what I mentioned previously that Manning faced better defenses than Delhomme (I think it was 11th ranked vs 20th on avg).

Also, some of these stats were cherry-picked. For instance, did you know on third down, Manning is 93.1 vs Delhomme 80.8? Or that he was better at the goal line? Or that his QB rating is better after the 1st half two minute warning? Or that against top ten defenses, Delhomme's best was 78.4 while Manning produced 87.9 (and that was against Pittsburgh)?

Just because Delhomme has favorable statistics with a long ball does not make him a better QB, or one who works harder. Short passing requires more precision since you've got less space to work with. A case could be made for either so that argument at best is a push.

As far as the Brooks/Blake/Delhomme comparison, I mean, are we talking about 2008 Jake or 2000 Jake? He was at two different levels of play from one end of his career to another. I don't think he's 2003 good while he's sitting on the bench in New Orleans, while Jeff Blake is an 82 rated QB and Aaron Brooks is an 85 rated QB. While Jake is unproven at that time, how do you indict the Saints' coaching staff (inept as they'd been) for keeping with the steady hand vs. taking a chance at an unproven commodity? That kind of sounds like all the people who wanna bench Jake for Moore.

a lot of stuff we are just going to have to agree to disagree on.

[Brandon]

I could spend 3 hours researching to respond to this mutant creature from the black lagoon that used to be a thread, but there are logical explanations to some of the things you posted about the long ball, such as the fact that Air Coryell is a play action offense which requires a good running game to set up the pass to fool defenders and force the safeties to play closer to the line, good mid-deep field passing, and two speedy receivers to get downfield as quickly as possible. Smitty is a great contributor in that regard. They play in two different systems, however, Eli Manning's strength is Delhomme's weakness in short field passing. Eli was 92 from 1-10 yards versus Delhomme's 73. Manning is also better in goal line situations, and this is where they asked him to make a lot of passes where the defense doesn't have much field to cover (13-4 TD-int ratio). Delhomme is much worse with a 3-6 TD-int ratio (though these INTs could be out of the red zone). Also don't forget what I mentioned previously that Manning faced better defenses than Delhomme (I think it was 11th ranked vs 20th on avg).

Short passes are not terribly difficult, by any means. They don't require much time to set up, don't require terribly good decision making and are more lenient on less accurate quarterbacks because the total travel distance is less. The 10-20yd pass is the hardest you can make in football because you're passing directly into the secondary and over linebackers, and more often than not will have to make that throw with some pressure on them because it takes longer to set up.

Also your stats are incorrect. In the redzone Jake is 8-1 TD/INT with 3-1 in goal-to-go situations, not 3-6, also Eli is 17-2 from the redzone with 10-1 in goal to go situations. However there are some interesting disparities, considering Jake threw from the redzone half as often because our offense is built to score from anywhere on the field.

Also our opponents had to face 3 of the top 10 scoring and yardage gained offenses, in us, Atlanta and New Orleans. Add onto that the fact that the NFC North and AFC West were more offensively imbued than the AFC East and NFC West. In fact our division featured all 4 teams within the top 15 in both categories, so that's 6 games for each team's defense against good offenses. The Packers, Bears, and Vikings also were inside of the top 15, while the Seahawks, 49ers and Rams were in the bottom 20. When all is added up our opponents faced much better offenses than the Giants' opponents did.

But who would YOU rather have under center if you were the Saints' head coach? Brooks wasn't the steady hand, he was wildly inconsistent. Either way I think you just proved why he was on the bench in NO, because he was an unproven, undrafted QB who was never properly given a chance because Brooks was the guy they put the money into.

[Fireball77]

Short passes are not terribly difficult, by any means. They don't require much time to set up, don't require terribly good decision making and are more lenient on less accurate quarterbacks because the total travel distance is less. The 10-20yd pass is the hardest you can make in football because you're passing directly into the secondary and over linebackers, and more often than not will have to make that throw with some pressure on them because it takes longer to set up.

And all last year, I watched Cassel get constantly downgraded in people's eyes because of this very fact. And rightfully so for the most part (though some of it was just the way the offense is as in the way they use Welker, etc.). Every week they would show on tv how most of his passes were 10 yds and the rest were YAC and how inaccurate he was/infrequent the throws were on anything over that. It may have even affected his trade value. He got better as the year went on, and he got more comfortable but he still has yet to prove that he can be a great deep ball thrower. Those short throws definitely increased his comp % big time and were something that helped a young inexperienced QB be more comfortable and effective in the game.

One would think Eli's comp % would be better than it is with all those short passes, that's for sure.

[dimbee]

I think we can all agree that Cutler has proven that he can be a great deep ball thrower

[Brandon]

I think we can all agree that Cutler has proven that he can be a great deep ball thrower

He still has some room to improve, but yes he is a very good passer. If he gets better in pressure situations, that would take away one of the few criticisms of his on-field ability.

[Da Swerski]

Oddly enough I was linked to this thread from another message board. I expected to just read it, but I felt I had to put in my input. I see that last couple pages have shifted gear, but I'd still like to weigh in on Cutler.

First lets discuss the value of the Cutler deal. Because some guy (I think it was the Mr. Scott) seemed to imply that no one is worth that, but how much did the Bears give up really? Lets pretend instead of trading for Cutler they believed Stafford was the next big thing in this years draft, and wanted him. Though even at his current age Cutler would be the #1 pick in the draft.

Using the NFL's draft point system:

http://www.sportznutz.com/nfl/draft/...alue_chart.htm

#1 overall pick: 3,000 points (Where Cutler would go in this draft)

#18 overall pick: 900 points (Bears 1st rounder)

#84 overall pick: 170 points (Bears 3rd rounder)

900 points + 170 points = 1,070 points

The Bears are now 1,930 points short of the 1st overall pick. The Bears would need the 3rd overall pick in the 2010 draft to make that up in the point system. Basically barring a horrible season, the Bears gave up less for Cutler then what it would take to get that 1st overall pick from the Lions. Which some thought the Lions would do a straight up trade for in Cutler.

Cutler as a player is better then people are saying. The only thing he's lacked is a defense. No QB can do well with a bad defense. The Bronco's defense gave up 28 points a game last year. Them giving up 30 was a common sight.

Record of QB's when their defense allows 30 points or more

Tom Brady: 5-8

Jim Kelly: 10-20

Peyton Manning: 9-25

Joe Montana: 6-17

Kurt Warner: 6-22

Jay Cutler: 3-13

Steve Young: 4-19

Ben Roethlisberger: 2-10

Brett Favre: 8-42

Terry Bradshaw: 4-21

Donovan McNabb: 3-16

John Elway: 7-41

Dan Marino: 7-52

Philip Rivers: 1-8

Jake Plummer: 4-37 (0-10 with the Broncos)

Troy Aikman: 2-20

Ron Jaworski: 1-14

Eli Manning: 1-16

Jeff George: 1-40

Matt Cassel: 0-4

Phil Simms: 0-20

Cutler ranked seventh among regular NFL starters last season with a 94.2 passer rating in the fourth quarter. Which is pretty impressive given that by then the Bronco's were usually behind. That's when QB's usually fall apart and throw INT's trying to win a game. Instead Cutler actually improved his TD to INT ratio in the 4th quarter. Go look at his splits. When the game was on the line, Cutler was at his best.

The Broncos Defense was ranked 31st in total Yards allowed, 31st in yards allowed per drive, 31st in points allowed per drive, 32nd in Turnovers per drive. By Comparison, the 32nd ranked defense was 0-16, and the 30th Ranked defense was 2-14. Again having a franchise QB allowed the Bronco's to even sniff the playoffs when other teams were looking for the 1st pick.

Check out what Football Outsiders had to say about Cutler. They are basically the saber guys of Football.

Based on Football Outsiders' advanced defense-adjusted yards above replacement stats (explained here), Cutler was one of the top five quarterbacks in the NFL last season. He holds very little if any blame for Denver's 8-8 record and late-season collapse. Cutler was the only full-time starting quarterback who didn't have a single game below replacement level in 2008. Denver was losing games because its defense was horrible. Our DVOA ratings go back to 1994, and over the past 15 seasons, the only defense to play worse belonged to the 2008 Lions.

In case you're wondering what this means exactly. Here's the explanation:

Primary Stats

DVOA: The main statistic used by Football Outsiders, DVOA (defense-adjusted value over average), breaks down the entire season play by play, comparing the success on each play to the league average based on a number of variables, including down, distance, location on field, current score gap, quarter and opponent quality.

While it can be used as a measure of total team performance, it differs from other power ratings found throughout the Web because it can be broken down to analyze team effectiveness in any number of ways: down, quarter, rushing vs. receiving, location on field, passes to backs vs. passes to receivers, etc. It can also be used to analyze specific players.

For more on how DVOA is computed, read the explanation at http://www.footballoutsiders.com/methods.php FootballOutsiders.com. You can find current total DVOA ratings for 2008 on this page.

DYAR: Defense-adjusted Yards Above Replacement. Our metric which takes a player's performance, adjusted for situation and opponent in the manner of DVOA, and then translates it into the approximate number of actual yards that such success (or failure) is worth when compared to a generic bench scrub (also called a "replacement player.") This statistic will increase the rating for players who have a high usage, even if their performance is average, demonstrating the importance of workhorse running backs and receivers who can draw the attention of the defense away from other players.

DYAR stats for 2008 are listed on FootballOutsiders.com for quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends.

Basically Cutler's career has yet to be defined, but he's off to a fantastic start.

[Darth Hater]

Oddly enough I was linked to this thread from another message board. I expected to just read it, but I felt I had to put in my input. I see that last couple pages have shifted gear, but I'd still like to weigh in on Cutler.

First lets discuss the value of the Cutler deal. Because some guy (I think it was the Mr. Scott) seemed to imply that no one is worth that, but how much did the Bears give up really? Lets pretend instead of trading for Cutler they believed Stafford was the next big thing in this years draft, and wanted him. Though even at his current age Cutler would be the #1 pick in the draft.

Using the NFL's draft point system:

http://www.sportznutz.com/nfl/draft/...alue_chart.htm

#1 overall pick: 3,000 points (Where Cutler would go in this draft)

#18 overall pick: 900 points (Bears 1st rounder)

#84 overall pick: 170 points (Bears 3rd rounder)

900 points + 170 points = 1,070 points

The Bears are now 1,930 points short of the 1st overall pick. The Bears would need the 3rd overall pick in the 2010 draft to make that up in the point system. Basically barring a horrible season, the Bears gave up less for Cutler then what it would take to get that 1st overall pick from the Lions. Which some thought the Lions would do a straight up trade for in Cutler.

Cutler as a player is better then people are saying. The only thing he's lacked is a defense. No QB can do well with a bad defense. The Bronco's defense gave up 28 points a game last year. Them giving up 30 was a common sight.

Record of QB's when their defense allows 30 points or more

Tom Brady: 5-8

Jim Kelly: 10-20

Peyton Manning: 9-25

Joe Montana: 6-17

Kurt Warner: 6-22

Jay Cutler: 3-13

Steve Young: 4-19

Ben Roethlisberger: 2-10

Brett Favre: 8-42

Terry Bradshaw: 4-21

Donovan McNabb: 3-16

John Elway: 7-41

Dan Marino: 7-52

Philip Rivers: 1-8

Jake Plummer: 4-37 (0-10 with the Broncos)

Troy Aikman: 2-20

Ron Jaworski: 1-14

Eli Manning: 1-16

Jeff George: 1-40

Matt Cassel: 0-4

Phil Simms: 0-20

Cutler ranked seventh among regular NFL starters last season with a 94.2 passer rating in the fourth quarter. Which is pretty impressive given that by then the Bronco's were usually behind. That's when QB's usually fall apart and throw INT's trying to win a game. Instead Cutler actually improved his TD to INT ratio in the 4th quarter. Go look at his splits. When the game was on the line, Cutler was at his best.

The Broncos Defense was ranked 31st in total Yards allowed, 31st in yards allowed per drive, 31st in points allowed per drive, 32nd in Turnovers per drive. By Comparison, the 32nd ranked defense was 0-16, and the 30th Ranked defense was 2-14. Again having a franchise QB allowed the Bronco's to even sniff the playoffs when other teams were looking for the 1st pick.

Check out what Football Outsiders had to say about Cutler. They are basically the saber guys of Football.

In case you're wondering what this means exactly. Here's the explanation:

Basically Cutler's career has yet to be defined, but he's off to a fantastic start.

Nice work man, REP!

[Brandon]

My contention is that it wasn't just Cutler in a lot of those games. It seems a lot of people forgot that the Broncos also had the best line in football and one of the better running games all things considered. FO ranked their running game to be the 4th best in the league, and their passing game as only being 8th. He also had a great receiving corps in Marshall, Royal, Stokely, and Scheffler.

When playing from behind Cutler's passer rating was only a 76.2, so the 4th quarter rating is a bit misleading. Cutler was only behind for about half of his throws as well, so it's not as if he was constantly playing with a deficit as some of these stats would lead you to believe.

He is a good QB but he has much to learn, on and off the field, before he is to be placed with the top 5-6 quarterbacks in the game.