Everything I have heard about Jay Cutler on ESPN is that he needs to shut up and stop pretending like he is the next John Elway, or ever worse better than John Elway. Stewart Scott made some smart ass comment about how Elway has won 15 playoff games and 2 SB, while Cutler has never won at anything in life. Even his Mom thinks Jay is a complete loser!
Let us look at a thing we at GOI like to call "numbers".
Elway started as a 23 year old rookie for the Broncos in 1983 with a god awful season. In 11 games, he compiled a 55 QB rating thanks to a 47.5 completion %, 7-14 TD-INT ratio with a league average 6.4 YPA. He went 3-7 as a starter and lost the playoff game.
Cutler started as a 23 year old rookie for the Broncos in 2006 playing in only 6 games because of the immortal Jake Plummer, who has more career picks than TDs. He had an 89 QB rating while completing 59% of his passes, and having a 9-5 TD-INT ratio with a well above average 7.3 YPA.
In Elway's first 10 year in the league, he never had a completion % of better than 58.6, a QB rating above 80% just once(normally in low 70's), 158-157 TD-INT ratio and a YPA around 7. If I randomly gave you those numbers, would you think this is an all-time great QB? Not so much
Cutler, in his 3 years, 2 of which he has started every game, has a rating of 87.1, 62.5%, 54-37 TD-INT ratio, and a YPA of 7.4
Elway stepped up his game in the final 6 years of his career, resulting in 2 super bowls, but his best 6 years are only as good as Cutler has been in his first 3. Certainly Cutler will improve over the years, and possible accumulate some SB wins himself. To say that Cutler's name doesn't belong in the same sentence as Elway is just wrong. One day it may be the other way around. Elway may have the stronger arm, but so does Kyle Farnsworth. So shut up ESPN and look at some numbers before you make pretentious remarks pretending your authority on sports supersedes things like numbers and stats.
I hate all the arguments that Joe Aikman and Peyton Manning sucked in their first season so when their starting QB sucks they can go, well these greats sucked so if my guy is sucking now, he has the potential to be a HOFer!
ReplyDeleteWhat I want to see out of my QB is not necessarily how he performs but if he keeps on getting better.
Jay Culter is obviously very good and all we want from him is to keep up this pace or continue to get better and develop (and obviously stay healthy).
There are plenty of historical examples of greats being great from the start, greats sucking and then developing into greats, and guys just flat out sucking throughout their career
I think there's an assumption in your post TBO that I don't know if you mean or not, that Jay Cutler will be better than Elway. It is easily possible that it happens but you, nor ESPN (which I think is the point of this post) can really compare any QBs this young into their career because you just don't know how a player will develop or anything. Now im not suggesting that this is what ur saying, but yeah, i def see your point
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And a huge pet peeve of mine is when people turn super bowl rings as a causal factors for greatness! what!? Are Trent Dilfer and Brad Johnson HOFers? They have as many SB rings as Brett Favre!