Can Jay Cutler read a defense?

The OFFENSIVE line!

That veterans who played on Martz’ offense said that they needed at least two years in order to execute his complex schemes properly- I think that may be a factor in that Martz has given Jay Cutler too much responsibility right away. This coupled with a horrible offensive line, and inexperienced receivers has made a mockery of the Bears’ offense.

No, he can’t read a defense or make the proper adjustments. He refuses to take what the defense gives him.

Hall getting four picks against him on Sunday is a prime example. He baited him to test him and won bigtime; he even gave Jay the opportunity to go deep on him cause he was jumping almost every route.

I hope I’m wrong about him, but I’m officially off his bandwagon after Sunday.

the system than his pure physical ability to make throws that most college players could not defend against. It’s like Reggie Bush or Vince Young or even Michael Vick. In college, great athletes can impact games because they might only go up against 1 or 2 players of their caliber in any given week but in the NFL, you go up against an entire team.

I can’t say Jay can’t read defenses, it just seems like he doesn’t try. To me, it seems like he thinks he can still force the ball in situations that worked in college but rarely work at this level. I mentioned in another post that he also takes too long to recognize that his primary is covered so by the time he gets to his second option, that receiver is ether covered or the rush is getting to him. It’s not to absolve our O-line at all but I really believe that a large number of the sacks he’s taken might have been avoided with better recognition and willingness to check down.

of the mike martz offense is no audibles. You run the plays I tell you to run because I have a Super Bowl ring and you dont ? ….. Wonder how much that would affect play….Course some of those throws and reads just leave you scratching your heads even going back to last season……

it’s an idea that’s been kicked around as often as Jay’s been by opposing defenses this year. I think it would work if there was a pocket to roll. Yes, I know Jay has had protection and he’s fired the perfect INT, but he’s one of those guys who likes to throw off his back foot or on the run. It seems the more unorthodox the style the better he is. He’s not your Tom Brady-like stand in the pocket and pick apart the defense style passer.

That said – I don’t know that Jay recognizes what he’s got in front of him. To me it looks like he’s got a receiver in mind the minute he breaks the huddle. This might be for two reasons – 1) he’s got his timing down with that receiver (Knox) or 2) he’s got no time to decide back there and it’s either that guy or nothing.

I think if Martz can find a way to buy him time it’s going to be to both of their advantages. Quick reads – quick decisions. Jay has got to check down though if it’s not there and if the check down is gone – start running or throw it away. It can’t be all or nothing if the first read is covered. He’s got good mobility – use it. Get him moving and give him the ability to make plays with his legs AND arm.

When he’s not seeing anything else, tossing it somewhere that only a 6’4" or taller receiver has a shot.

I had this exact same conversation yesterday. Cutler is a very talented QB and does some things very well and other things not so well. Cutler is a fantastic roll-out QB. Cutler can get a ball to a place very few other QBs in the NFL can get it. Cutler has a good play action skill. Cutler is great at throwing on the move. In Denver, Cutler was in a system that fit him to a T, and if he had a decent defense, they likely would still be in the same system and playing for pro bowl tickets and playoff spots right now. Cutler to Marshall and Royal was a thing of beauty and they had a great line. He did throw picks in the teens, but he threw TDs in the 20s and over 4k yards, so he could work that system. He is very much a “90’s QB” built for a traditional offense.

Cutler is not a cerebral, conservative QB. Martz is actually BEST paired with a cerebral conservative QB believe it or not at your leisure.

If your progression reads have you going top to bottom instead of bottom to top, and making timing based reads and throws, you have to not only take the deep ball when its there, but also GIVE UP ON IT QUICKLY when it is not. Cutler never gives up on a route or a play, and thus never finishes going through his progressions, even when he has time. If he has trouble going through progressions the answer is LESS options, not MORE options.

Martz’ system is ideal for a QB that can make rapid decisions, is 100% willing to just take what is given, and is a “team player” as far as pass distribution. He has to be wiling to go to whoever, whenever. Good QBs that fit that category would be like Brady and Brees. Those guys are not great at running out of power O sets, nor are they dangerous on the bootleg/roll out, but both can take a spread and make amazing quick reads. The more options, the better for them.

For Cutler, give him 2-3 options, one being a dump off, and a max protect set up. It is where he works best, on the move with only a couple of options.

I think we may have picked the worst system for him, and it has NOTHING to do with propensity for turnovers, rather that our QB is not a fast read progression QB and we decided to triple his read obligations.

Could be worse. Could be better, but could definitely be worse. It sure won’t be a “win pretty” season, though.

We saw it in Week 1 last season in Green Bay where Knox waited for a slant pass to come to him and the game end when the Bears had a glimmer of a chance after the Jennings long TD.

Last week against Washington, Knox again proved he can’t be counted on in between the hashes on another Cutler INT.

When are the Bears going to realize their personnel and not allow these mistakes to even become a possibility? Knox CANNOT run a slant pattern with confidence.

how much of this inability is simply too much/too soon? You say in DEN with Shanahan they did half-field reads (not exaclty unheard of for young qbs).

I just wonder if 3 systems in 3 years killed his development.

When are you Cutler lovers going to start holding him accountable. Throwing 4 picks to the same guy in the same game, not really all his fault. OK. Throwing as many picks as touchdowns for the season, aww get him some help. When Grossman was stinkin’ up the joint you were calling for his head. Cutler sux too, but now it’s 100% on the offensive line. What’s up with that?

1. Worst O-line in the history of football. (not the NFL) in football history period.
2. Incompetent coaching (at times) and never use his strengths or never even let him audible.
3. This is his 3rd system in 3 years and this system takes at least 2.5 years fro a QB to get to master the Martz-fense.
4. Gunslinger mentality will throw into tight coverage high risk, high reward guy (but we know this.) That’s what he is.
5. Knox, Hester, anare NOT starting WRs and quit on their routes on a consistent basis inexperience and either #4 or #3 WRs on any other team.
6. I almost quit on Olsen he can’t block and has done nothing to help his cause at receiving.
7. Angelo’s refusal to put more talent around him the moment he got here.
8. Lack of Jay’s favorite guy DA especially in the redzone (Knox and Hester in the redzone WHO ARE YOU FOOLIN?!)
9. Lack of any kind of balance in the offense (but again we know this) Which can be valid given whatever situation we are in.
10. And Cutler not being able to trust the line (what line?) which leads to hurried throws leads to a possible INT. IMO it seems that he’s used to getting his ass knocked down possibly every play (like the giants game) you have that in your mind and can effect your game. Who has been hit more than him?

Now look I’m not excusing Jay’s play yesterday (possibly revived D- Hall’s career damn) But each year at Denver he improved bit by bit he improved. The Moment he got here thats when the 3 or 4 INT’s happened. He had turnovers at Denver but never at this rate. There he had a good WR in Marshall and they compliment each other and good O-line and coaches that get in his ear about his mistakes and help him out with those mistakes.

The Steelers and Packers and Eagles all had subpar O-lines now. GB has Finley, Driver, Jennings, Jones, and Lee (he’s decent)
Eagles have Maclin, Celek, and Jackson.
Steelers Ward, Wallace and Miller and Mendenhall. Thos 3 teams lines aren’t all that great but they had talent around them as well thanks to good GMs.

Right now is much too soon to throw him out of town. If guys can withstand Grossman when he had better talent around him (not saying much but Thomas Jones is better than Taylor and Forte) and much better line back then and when he was used to 1 system (no matter how simple it is) for more than 3 years and seems that he sucked all on his own. If Jay is on an offense like GB (as much as I would hate to say it) he would do much better there than over here imo.

Again I’m not defending his bad play against the Skins
He makes mistakes some of which can cost a game but if I hear anyone saying they would rather have Rex back or Orton after that beat down against the raiders I’m gonna puke.

Its a combination of every thing here the QB, O-line, the GM coaching its been almost everything for years. If we had drafted Peyton here he would suck here too if Angelo did the same crap he is doing now.

Great QBs learn to live behind bad offensive line, and can actually elevate the performance of mediocre WRs. Not a lot of that seems to be happening.

If Lovie is gone after this season and maybe Angelo with him, what does this mean for Cutler?

Many new Head Coaches want to bring in their own guy to be the QB, especially if they can get a reasonable return for them

He’s the biggest guy we’ve got, give him some opportunities and see what happens.

and after a year and a half they want Jay gone. He has performed before and yet here everyone wanted a messiah. This all boils down to the lack of anything around Jay. Call him egotistical or whatever you want but the guy has skill. Most QB’s have egos and the good ones have good talent around them. People in this city are so quick to crucify people when they have bad games. Has Jay been very bad at times? Of course he has. But has Jay also been great? Yes he has. The biggest problem I see is that none of these coaches want to knock him down a peg. He needs a good butt-kicking and I guarantee his decision-making will improve. Mike Shanahan is pretty good at recognizing talent so he saw good things in Jay and was on his way to molding Jay into a good QB. Here in Chicago his growth has been stunted by many factors. Chill out already and let’s at least see what the guy can do with stability around him. I am a Jay supporter but I’m not an idiot. If I see that he is still making dumb mistakes when he finally has what he needs, then I will agree with the meatheads. I’m not apologizing for the guy but everyone needs to relax and look at the entire picture before jumping off a cliff

and they were criticizing Brett Farve on his reading or lack of reading the GB defense.
They we asking why he was trying to force a throw into a covered Berryman when Harveywallbanger was wide open. etc. There is only one Peyton Manning and he throws and INT every so often as well.

If you love to hate QB’s then being a Bears fan is heaven cuz we have had a boat load of bad QB’s (you listening Jim Miller you poser).

Cutler thew 2 INTs on Sunday. The other 2 were on the WRs. I personally think Cutler played awful last Sunday, but to say he cannot read defenses is moronic. Jay is playing the high-risk/high-reward game. He’s trying to make the big play on every play because he knows damn well that this talent on this offense cannot sustain drives or play consistently. If he doesn’t try to make the big play, the offense has zero chance. If there is no 70-80 yard TD run/pass, the Bears offense is just not good enough to put together a 12 play 80 yard drive. SO the calculation becomes this for Cutler to have success:

Take all sorts of risks and maybe break 2-3 big plays during the game and hope the defense can hold down their own and the ST can generate field position/points.

or

Run an offense similar to the Orton offense that can ONLY win when the defense holds the opposition to under 14 points by kicking 3-5 FGs a game.

I’ve said this many times before, CUTLER IS NOT PERFECT BUT HE’S THE LAST THING THE OFFENSE NEEDS TO FIX! Get 1 starting WR and a few decent O-linemen and if he sucks ass then you can complain about it.

Cutler has actually done a fine job this season, until Sunday, of limiting INTs. Hall seemed to bring something out in him. I don’t know if it was a desire to prove that he could beat hall, or a desire to show faith in Knox to beat hall, or if it was just a matter of Knox saying to him in the huddle that if Jay tossed the ball to the spot, he could beat him.

The big problem with all of this is that there is no way to know the “why”. Why did Jay think Hall was vulnerable? What did Knox say in the huddle? What did Jay say in the huddle. It’s all kinds of fun to pretend we have the answers. But reality is that there is more to this than just Jay hucking the ball up in the air.

More importantly though. is this. Every QB, even the Mannings and the Favres and the Marinos and the Elways have games like this. Why is it that Jay went into this game with one of the Best INT percentages in the league (and left this game with a INT percentage right around Aaron Rodgers) and many seem so anxious to pile on Cutler?

Could he have played better? Yep. Is this one game going to make or break Jay Cutler or the Bears? Nope.

And was this the same discussions Bronco’s Fans were having after he started out worse than jay has over his first five years?

In addition to poor decision-making (which I think he has somewhat improved on), Cutler is NOT an accurate thrower.

Cutler misses a lot of wide-open guys.

In terms of accuracy, I would rank Cutler in the bottom 1/3 of NFL QBs.

From early on, when dealing with problems, we are taught one thing. The simplest solution is usually the right one. Not always, of course. But usually.

Our offensive line is the simplest solution.

There will still be problems, even if the line was replaced by 5 future hall-of-fame linemen. Hell, even in Brady’s season of perfection he wasn’t perfect, throwing 8 INTs. That just shows that even the best QBs in their best years made some mistakes. Even the best offenses have hiccups. But fixing the line would fix a lot.

I’ll go as far as to say this. It is impossible to accurately assess the offensive skill positions without fixing the line. You cannot gage Forte accurately behind this hot mess. You cannot gage the receiving corps when the QB cannot get the ball to them because he is running for his life. You cannot gage Cutler when he’s already been sacked 27 times in 5½ games, which equals his second highest total for a season, and falls just 8 shy of last season’s 35 sack count with 9 games remaining.

Some on this thread are talking about the number of games Cutler has lost. Bullhockey. How many of those games would we have been in without him? Some want to talk about his win loss record. Shipoopy. Cutler has put his teams in a position to win. Until this season, it was his defenses that failed him. His Pro Bowl season saw his defense giving away the 3rd most points in the league. Last season, his defense allowed the 6th most points by a Bears team in Chicago’s 90 seasons.

What does the future hold for Jay? No telling. I won’t stand here and claim that I know which direction Cutler is headed. There are too many factors. HCs, OCs, GMs, offensive linemen, receivers, rushing attacks. I just don’t know. But I do know when claims are made that are totally off base. And i do understand the game enough to know that way to much responsibility is being laid on Cutler for the offensive woes.

The simplest solution is usually the right one. Fix the damned line.

I’ve heard a lot of cock and bull about how he’s not ‘allowed’ to audible. Wahhat a crock. He’s the QB. It’s his team. If you’re the starting QB for a billion dollar franchise and you see something at the LOS then you’d better change things up or you’re not doing your job. As much as I dislike P Manning, he changes calls like a woman changes her mind. If you don’t audible you’re not adapting. Adapt or die, it’s that simple. I think he’s not making audibles because he’s just not as smart as everyone makes him out to be just because of the college he went to. Going to college doesn’t make you smart, and going to Yale doesn’t make you smarter …