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10-21-2009, 09:44 PM
Did the Bears get the wrong guy at QB?

Orton's outperforming Cutler, becoming a star in Denver under McDaniels

October 21, 2009
BY RICK TELANDER rtelander@suntimes.com

Monday morning quarterbacking is easy --about as easy as Sunday afternoon quarterbacking is hard.

But we got some stuff here, folks.

The Bears are quarterback Jay Cutler's team for the next half-decade, for instance.

On Tuesday night, Bears general manager Jerry Angelo made it official just five games into the season, getting Cutler to sign a contract extension that will keep him in Chicago through 2013 and will earn him Manning-brothers-type loot. We're talking $20million in up-front bonus money on a contract with a total value of close to $30 million.

So there's that.

But there's also this: The quarterback the Bears tossed to the Denver Broncos as a low-level substitute in their offseason trade for Cutler -- the bearded and limited Kyle Orton -- is having a better season than Cutler.

Indeed, Orton, the former Bears starter who had to watch Rex Grossman dither around in the backfield for nearly two years, is pretty much amazing the entire NFL world as he has led the seemingly downgraded Broncos to a tie for the best record in the league at 6-0.

On Monday night against the San Diego Chargers, Orton led his team to a 34-23 road victory that had people in Chicago muttering into their beers that the guy who never quite grabbed our attention while here was certainly going to melt down at the end.

He didn't.

Orton threw two second-half touchdown passes, capping his night with a five-yard pass to wideout Brandon Stokley, who rolled into the end zone and finished the Chargers with 2:55 left.

For the game, Orton went 20-for-29 for 229 yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. His passer rating of 115.4 brought his season rating up to a stunning 101.1.

Sensational numbers
Orton has completed 64 percent of his passes for 1,465 yards, nine touchdowns and only one interception. At that rate, he'll throw for 3,907 yards, 24 touchdowns and 2 2/3 interceptions in 2009.

Is this the guy who played for the Bears?

Apparently so. Because we can see formerly lazy and reviled Bears running back Cedric Benson of the Cincinnati Bengals leading the league in carries (127) with the NFL's third-best rushing yardage (531) and the best rushing average (4.2 yards) of his career. This while Bears running back Matt Forte plummets.

Sometimes a change of scenery can change your life. And sometimes the team that had you just didn't know how to use you, stroke you or bring out your best.

And you wonder: Whose fault is that? And further: Do the Bears ruin their offensive stars?

Cutler is doing quite well for the Bears. Well, not bad. But it's his wildness in the red zone and those seven interceptions that make one pause.

Yes, Orton has been lucky and blessed -- how many times can you count on a pass being deflected to one of your receivers for an 87-yard game-winning touchdown (Orton-to-Stokley in Game 1 against the Bengals)? And how many punt and kickoff returns for touchdowns do you normally get in a game? (Against the Chargers, the Broncos' Eddie Royal ran back one of each.)

Yet the slow-footed but shrewd Orton is blossoming in the Broncos' shotgun offense -- his rating in the gun was 132.2 against the Chargers but only 48.6 in his few under-center snaps -- and that is all about coaching.

If you think back to that Bears-Broncos preseason game Aug. 30, things looked terrible for the Broncos and Orton. Broncos coach Josh McDaniels was getting roundly vilified and painted as a mean, dumb, childish clone snapped from the rib of former mentor Bill Belichick.

Timing is everything
Cutler looked great in that game, Orton awful. Orton came out for good that night with his hand bleeding and a shocked look on his face.

But what did it mean? Nothing.

McDaniels looks like a genius now (remember how eager he was to replace Cutler?), and Orton looks like the second coming of Bart Starr.

''The league is funny. It's all about timing,'' Cutler said Tuesday on the ''Waddle and Silvy Show'' on WMVP-AM (1000). ''You could be one of the best players in the league, but if you're not in the right system, you don't have the right people around you, there's a lot of different aspects that go into making or breaking a player.

''It's working for Kyle. It's working for Josh. And it's working for the Broncos. They've got a good thing going.''

Do the Bears?

There's no way they could've locked up the wrong quarterback.

Is there?

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/telander/1837007,CST-SPT-rick21.article#

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