Jay Cant Sweat the Small Stuff

[Medford Bronco]

I usually dont agree with Kizla but I think this is a good article here

http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_10910531

Quarterback Jay Cutler and the offense have been frustrated the last five games, failing to reach 20 points in any of those games. (John Leyba, The Denver Post )Our mop-topped Kid QB is right about one thing. Nobody in the game can fling a football harder than Jay Cutler. His arm is brilliant.Trouble is: Jay-C is messed up in the head.

"What's wrong with his state of mind?" said Broncos coach Mike Shanahan, who really doesn't have a good answer how Cutler went from an MVP candidate to a target of boos in the span of four losses. "That's just the nature of this game."

And that's precisely the problem.

For all the big money and breathless hype the NFL bestows on its young gunslingers, the league does a remarkably lousy job of developing young quarterbacks. This year's Matt Ryan could be next season's Matt Leinart. Star today, bum tomorrow.

If the Broncos are not real careful, they are going to do serious and perhaps irreparable damage to the only player who stands between where they are now, atop the weakest division in pro football, and the pits, where the five weakest teams in the league reside.

Cutler is not John Elway.

But he is the biggest talent to walk through the doors of Dove Valley since Terrell Davis.

Trouble is: After going through a slump so wretched his interceptions now seem colorblind, Cutler now seems convinced the reason Denver has lost four of five games is because: "It's my fault."

While Cutler's sense of responsibility is admirable, young quarterbacks crumble all too often because they take far too much on their shoulders. (See: Young, Vince.)

Locking Cutler in a dark room with videotape evidence of his turnovers will not fix what's wrong here.

What Cutler really needs is a shrink. Or a guru.

The word around the league is what some of us have suspected since his meltdown late in an embarrassing, error-filled loss at Kansas City more than a month ago. If you can get inside Cutler's head, you can rattle the inexperienced QB by turning his amped-up competitiveness against him.

In baseball, it's a common affliction among phenom pitchers. Great stuff. Bad make-up.

So stop it from becoming a fatal flaw in Cutler. Teaching him not to sweat all the small stuff, from trash talk on the field to those drunken Bozos in the stands, is of far more lasting importance than making the playoffs in 2008.

Trouble is: Shanahan believes in the old-school, rub-some-dirt-on-your-bruised- ego philosophy of football. For all Shanny's obvious attributes, touchy-feely will never be his coaching strength.

When the Broncos have invested more than $10 million in guaranteed money to Cutler, however, it doesn't make much sense to entrust his maturation process to Jeremy Bates, a 32-year-old quarterbacks coach learning on the job.

Bullish on Cutler since before Denver drafted him, let me repeat: The Broncos can win a Super Bowl somewhere down the road with him as their leading man.

First, however, there are some emotional scars to repair. At Vanderbilt, Cutler lost nearly three dozen times in four college seasons. As a Broncos starter, he has gone 13-16 in an NFL town that demands excellence.

Here's guessing too much losing has blurred his vision, causing Cutler to see football as a game of him against the world, whether he is trying to squeeze a pass between two defenders or rolling his eyes at silly 2 0/20 hindsight questions in a postgame news conference.

"This game is tricky, especially as a quarterback," Cutler said. Especially since he is being asked to bail out the least-talented team Shanahan has ever put on the field in Denver.

Share Your Analysis

Post sports columnist Mark Kiszla fields your feedback. Look for it in Kickin' It With Kiz every Saturday.
Yes, these Broncos are worse than the 6-10 squad from 1999, or did you forget that fall from Super Bowl grace happened despite the presence of Rod Smith, Tom Nalen, Shannon Sharpe, Trevor Pryce, Bill Romanowski and Al Wilson?

Cutler has not been the same player since Shanahan, looking for any way to keep his miserable defense on the bench, ordered a painfully conservative game plan that worked against Tampa Bay, but broke the trust between the young quarterback and his coaches.

During the course of three straight, confidence-shaking defeats, when Cutler isn't straining so hard to let his bravado show that a turnover of youthful arrogance results, he seems discouraged to the point of boredom by ball-control tactics that do not play to his physical gifts.

Cutler will never be a game manager. This is a natural born game-changer.

It is the age-old challenge of harnessing raw, unrefined talent. Cutler must be taught to think like a winner, without killing the rebel spirit that makes him believe no deficit is too daunting and no throw is impossible.

If Shanahan truly is a football genius, how hard can that be?

[scott.475]

Good article. What has happened to all the offensive creativity we saw in the early games, when Cutler's confidence was so high?

[G_Money]

I say again, if you have QB who will take risks and turn the ball over, you need a defense that can get him the ball back.

A gambling QB needs special teams to make good plays and defense to play aggressively so he can have more chances with the ball in enemy territory.

Engineering consistent 14 play drives is not his strength. Hitting a 45 yard bomb on the first play after an interception is.

We CANNOT win with a defense that is this far behind in turnover ratio. We can get Jay to clean up the fumbles and ints somewhat, but he's never gonna throw 25 TDs with 6 ints. He might throw 40 TDs with 20 INTs though.

You take the turnovers if you have backs that don't fumble and WRs that don't fumble and an opportunistic defense.

But it's very hard to be a consistent winner if you're always losing the turnover battle.

Jay needs to have a little less prickly pride - can't be like Marty McFly every time somebody calls him a chicken, cuz eventually Bad Things will happen and he'll never get to fulfill his dream of being a musician - but he's always gonna have some form of the turnover bug in him.

That's not BAD. John did. But John also had the confidence of his team. When he'd throw two early picks, the defense just thought, "well, now he's got that out of his system, so if we can hold these guys to within a coupla scores we should get a really nice 4th quarter comeback outta this."

With John, we were never out of it, and everybody knew it. With Jay...Jay starts his comebacks too late. Maybe that's him, and maybe that's a defense that can't stop the opposition from scoring on those turnovers.

This past week it was him. The defense kept us in the game for as long as possible, Jay just didn't do his part soon enough (though one dodgy pass-interference call might have changed everything).

But going forward, we're gonna need a TEAM to start really winning. When Jay gets frustrated he throws the game away. Our defense for the most part hasn't helped with that by giving him better chances and swinging the momentum back in his direction. Mostly they swing it in the opposite direction.

Jay has work to do on his turnover issues, but then so does the whole offense.

Still, the turnovers WILL happen. And until we can get the ball BACK for our O, it's a problem that will keep causing losses, as well as a reduction of risk on the part of the offense that will hamper the playmakers our offense does have.

We can't become a ball control offense with a line that can't run-block consistently yet, a QB who throws downfield instead of short, and no runningbacks.

If we want to win games, we have to take risks. We're turning the ball over just as much in ball-control-offense, but it's closer to the line of scrimmage when we do. At least when Jay's throwing the ball 30 yards downfield to get picked off, it's as good as a short punt.

Interceptions aren't always the worst thing. ;)

~G

[DenBronx]

you can sweat the petty things but just dont go petting the sweaty things.

[RunYouOver]

I say again, if you have QB who will take risks and turn the ball over, you need a defense that can get him the ball back.

A gambling QB needs special teams to make good plays and defense to play aggressively so he can have more chances with the ball in enemy territory.

Engineering consistent 14 play drives is not his strength. Hitting a 45 yard bomb on the first play after an interception is.

We CANNOT win with a defense that is this far behind in turnover ratio. We can get Jay to clean up the fumbles and ints somewhat, but he's never gonna throw 25 TDs with 6 ints. He might throw 40 TDs with 20 INTs though.

You take the turnovers if you have backs that don't fumble and WRs that don't fumble and an opportunistic defense.

But it's very hard to be a consistent winner if you're always losing the turnover battle.

Jay needs to have a little less prickly pride - can't be like Marty McFly every time somebody calls him a chicken, cuz eventually Bad Things will happen and he'll never get to fulfill his dream of being a musician - but he's always gonna have some form of the turnover bug in him.

That's not BAD. John did. But John also had the confidence of his team. When he'd throw two early picks, the defense just thought, "well, now he's got that out of his system, so if we can hold these guys to within a coupla scores we should get a really nice 4th quarter comeback outta this."

With John, we were never out of it, and everybody knew it. With Jay...Jay starts his comebacks too late. Maybe that's him, and maybe that's a defense that can't stop the opposition from scoring on those turnovers.

This past week it was him. The defense kept us in the game for as long as possible, Jay just didn't do his part soon enough (though one dodgy pass-interference call might have changed everything).

But going forward, we're gonna need a TEAM to start really winning. When Jay gets frustrated he throws the game away. Our defense for the most part hasn't helped with that by giving him better chances and swinging the momentum back in his direction. Mostly they swing it in the opposite direction.

Jay has work to do on his turnover issues, but then so does the whole offense.

Still, the turnovers WILL happen. And until we can get the ball BACK for our O, it's a problem that will keep causing losses, as well as a reduction of risk on the part of the offense that will hamper the playmakers our offense does have.

We can't become a ball control offense with a line that can't run-block consistently yet, a QB who throws downfield instead of short, and no runningbacks.

If we want to win games, we have to take risks. We're turning the ball over just as much in ball-control-offense, but it's closer to the line of scrimmage when we do. At least when Jay's throwing the ball 30 yards downfield to get picked off, it's as good as a short punt.

Interceptions aren't always the worst thing. ;)

~G



The article was great, and this post was just as good.

Great insight!:salute:

[fcspikeit]

I say again, if you have QB who will take risks and turn the ball over, you need a defense that can get him the ball back.

A gambling QB needs special teams to make good plays and defense to play aggressively so he can have more chances with the ball in enemy territory.

Engineering consistent 14 play drives is not his strength. Hitting a 45 yard bomb on the first play after an interception is.

We CANNOT win with a defense that is this far behind in turnover ratio. We can get Jay to clean up the fumbles and ints somewhat, but he's never gonna throw 25 TDs with 6 ints. He might throw 40 TDs with 20 INTs though.

You take the turnovers if you have backs that don't fumble and WRs that don't fumble and an opportunistic defense.

But it's very hard to be a consistent winner if you're always losing the turnover battle.

Jay needs to have a little less prickly pride - can't be like Marty McFly every time somebody calls him a chicken, cuz eventually Bad Things will happen and he'll never get to fulfill his dream of being a musician - but he's always gonna have some form of the turnover bug in him.

That's not BAD. John did. But John also had the confidence of his team. When he'd throw two early picks, the defense just thought, "well, now he's got that out of his system, so if we can hold these guys to within a coupla scores we should get a really nice 4th quarter comeback outta this."

With John, we were never out of it, and everybody knew it. With Jay...Jay starts his comebacks too late. Maybe that's him, and maybe that's a defense that can't stop the opposition from scoring on those turnovers.

This past week it was him. The defense kept us in the game for as long as possible, Jay just didn't do his part soon enough (though one dodgy pass-interference call might have changed everything).

But going forward, we're gonna need a TEAM to start really winning. When Jay gets frustrated he throws the game away. Our defense for the most part hasn't helped with that by giving him better chances and swinging the momentum back in his direction. Mostly they swing it in the opposite direction.

Jay has work to do on his turnover issues, but then so does the whole offense.

Still, the turnovers WILL happen. And until we can get the ball BACK for our O, it's a problem that will keep causing losses, as well as a reduction of risk on the part of the offense that will hamper the playmakers our offense does have.

We can't become a ball control offense with a line that can't run-block consistently yet, a QB who throws downfield instead of short, and no runningbacks.

If we want to win games, we have to take risks. We're turning the ball over just as much in ball-control-offense, but it's closer to the line of scrimmage when we do. At least when Jay's throwing the ball 30 yards downfield to get picked off, it's as good as a short punt.

Interceptions aren't always the worst thing. ;)

~G


Great read G!

For all the talent everyone keeps saying we have on this team. More times then not it doesn't show up on game day. IMO that is the biggest reason for the decline in offence. If the case were that Cutler was missing the open guys I would lay the blame on him.

When the pass is completed Cutler has to throw into a tight window with very little chance of the receiver advancing the ball. Why is that? Is it the receiver or the scheme’s fault? What I’m saying is we get nothing for free.

When you watch other good offenses you will see open guys all over the field. You will see the underneath guys catch a ball and have 7 yards of open field to run. If Cutler was not throwing to wide open underneath guys to try and force it into a covered deep guy I would be all over him. I’m just not seeing that. It seems even when he dumps the ball off the guy is covered and barely gets back to the line of scrimmage.

Think back to every TD Cutler has thrown this year. Were any of the guys wide open? Or did Cutler make an amazing throw? More times then not you will find the later to be true. That’s fine but that’s a lot to ask of any QB. When your always having to throw into tight windows like that, your off throws will almost always be INT’s. In short Cutler has to be perfect in order for this scheme to work. IMO it’s too much to ask.

It is a little mind boggling. Think of Indy when the had the 3 good wide receivers. There was no way to stop them. You just can’t cover that many guys. Yet the defenses we have played the last 4 games have done just that. Something has to give, either we don’t have as much talent at the wide out positions as we think or our scheme isn’t using the talent we have.

When I see the frustration coming from Cutler and Marshall, it seems to be directed toward the scheme instead of the on field play. It looks to me like the team doesn’t believe in the system. From what I have seen it’s hard to disagree with them. Things will only get worse if our players don’t believe our game plans aren’t giving them the best chance to succeed.