How good do we "need" Cutler to be?

Years ago, I was talking to a wise old man in our neighborhood. He has since passed away, but I've always remembered a point he made to me one day. He said to me that there is a big difference between a person's "needs" and "wants" in life. He had learned to distinguish between the two. I always was impressed by how this guy was always at peace, and lived a really good & happy life - even though he didn't own a lot of material things.

You could definitely see that he was "successful in life" but not a guy with a lot of the toys we all chase.

This morning I was thinking about Jay Cutler, and all of our comments regarding his play since he's been here. Clearly, most of us "want" an elite quarterback in Chicago. But I'm curious what you guy think about our "needs" here. How good does Jay Cutler "need" to be, in order for us to be consistently solid as a team? Good enough to retake the NFC-N title, and ultimately good enough to win a Super Bowl?

Cutler, has a career QB rating of 84. During his tenure at Chicago, his rating has been in the range from 76 to 86. This season it was 81.

Please note that I'm not asking if he's elite, or should be elite, or pointing out his failings, poor mechanics, what we gave Denver to get him - none of that. Just asking about our "needs" here.

How good does he "need" to be for the Bears to be consistently successful?

He needs to get back to mid 2011 form. For that to happen, he's got to trust in the team more, which means throw the ball to someone else if Marshall is triple-covered all game. I really don't buy that his passing mechanics are unfixable, just need a little tweeking. Honestly, if the line is given a noticeable addition in talent, then I think a lot of it will fix itself. I think a good offensive minded coach won't get him to the level we thought he'd be (Rodgers, Manning) but it could make him the one that fits our team (Roethlisberger, Chad Pennington)

He needs to be able to comp about mid 60's of his passes, and throw on average for 8+ per comp; he needs to be somewhere in the top 10-13 of qb's. Anything less then that and you're not going to do much winning.

GB wasn't going to lose b/c Ponder was out there, regardless of what minny whats you to think. But they can afford to have a 15-20 ranked qb as long as AP keeps doing what he's doing b/c the D is always going to stop him first, which should leave at least 1 of their average WR's wide open. All Ponder has to do is read the D good enough to find that 1. Most don't have that luxury, so the qb has to be better and be a real threat.

Honestly, I don't see fixes to the o-line and a coach that is headstrong enough to get his offense established early and oftwn, can't fix.

Call me a homer but I would have put Cutler as a top-10 quarterback for the 2012 season (with a handicap of course due to the o-line issues). I really believe Cutler's performance comes down to fixing the o-line. I'm not saying Tice was a competent offensive coordinator, but it is even difficult to evaluate Tice's play calling because he had to ditch at the very least 50% of his playbook. What does Cutler not have? He has pocket awareness, he has arm strength, he has accuracy (did you see how many tight windows he fit it into to get it to Marshall?). I think a lot of Cutler's failings this year came down to not have any additional receivers to throw to when Jeffrey and Bennett went down and not having any faith in the offensive line holding up (this was evident when Cutler had time to throw).

With all of the other skill position players we have, Cutler only has to be a top-10 quarterback if the line can be fixed to become competent (not stellar).

He will never be a Payton Manning, Rodgers or Tom Brady. We'd all "want" a quarterback like this, and I think a lot of Bears fans are angry Cutler isn't elite. They need to get over it.

On the other hand, I look at guys like Eli Manning and think that we could certainly win titles with a guy performing at that level. Eli's teams won super bowls with him performing at around 90 QBR. Same with Big Ben.

I think we "need" for Cutler to be at a QB rating around 90 or so - with a completion percentage of 60+ or so. I qualify this with one point. The rest of the team needs to be at a comparable level to those NY Giant and Steeler teams. Call me stupid, but I believe this is VERY attainable. I like to think with Emery and a solid head coach in place, we can build that kind of team - and Jay Cutler will be plenty "good enough" to meet our "needs" at quarterback.

I agree with that and would add that the offense seriously looked like Marshall was the only one who studied the playbook last year. The reason why I think that's a good thing is that that talented group has never looked so lost (here, or on another team) as under just one season of tice. Just changing the scenery of offense completely is not only a good thing, but the first time in Bears' history being a reason to change coaches. Obviously Emery thought Cutler is being grossly misused here, and with him mentioning drafting McClellan, Rodriguez and Hardin as being that they were good players and could play more position than 1. Lovie and co. couldn't come up with too many creative ways of using them, and he made note of that in his press conference; I think this is important, because if he's going to stress the duality of a player's potential output, it would seem that on the offensive side, he's thinking not only thinking farther ahead than Angelo ever did, but that he's going to have a guy so meticulous as to set his passing game based on Cutler's good qualities.

I think what we "need" out of Cutler next year depends on what kind of defense we have to complement our offense.

If they can play one more season together near the standard that was set under Lovie than we need Cutler to lead an offense that is ranked overall in the high-teens to be a more effective well rounded team. I don't care what kind of personal stats that creates for Cutty in the end, but obviously this means spreading the wealth to others in the passing game (outside of BMarsh) and establishing a better run game.

If the defense is thrown into a new system (once the HC is decided) and is stumbling out of the gate than we might need Cutler to step up his game in an effort to put up more points then what the defense it giving up.

We need Jay to be good enough to win games on offense. If this is to be looked at from a QB rating standpoint, then high 80's to low 90's. I would also second Rics' opinion about his completion % needing to be 60+.

How to get those improvements is another question.

I think Jay could achieve this goal by improving his play-action move. One thing I noticed watching the wildcard games this weekend was that I was sometimes fooled by the play-action. I can't recall being fooled by the Bears play-action this year... Not saying that it never fooled the other team, merely that it rarely (if ever) fooled me. Given how other teams play-action is fooling me this past weekend, there is clearly room for improvement. Add in the need for the Bears to run better, and I see this as important.

Another thing I think Jay could do better is to simply take what the opposing defense gives him more often. There was at least one game in which this is exactly what was done (vs. Panthers). As an observer, it seems that Jay likes to "funnel in" on one receiver. Whether this is Jay not going through his reads, or just not trusting players to catch the ball, I have no way of telling. It does however sometimes result in leaving players wide open in a position to get a first down getting overlooked in favor of whomever Jay happens to be focused on.

These strike me as 2 things that Jay could improve at, that would make the team better, even with the same players on the field.

There are likely other things that I have not noticed. I also believe that the O-line could well have a comparable impact on the team as these two things I mentioned. However, this thread is (or at least should be) confined to things Cutler can, should, or needs to do.

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Originally Posted by XaosGorilla

We need Jay to be good enough to win games on offense. If this is to be looked at from a QB rating standpoint, then high 80's to low 90's. I would also second Rics' opinion about his completion % needing to be 60+.

How to get those improvements is another question.

I think Jay could achieve this goal by improving his play-action move. One thing I noticed watching the wildcard games this weekend was that I was sometimes fooled by the play-action. I can't recall being fooled by the Bears play-action this year... Not saying that it never fooled the other team, merely that it rarely (if ever) fooled me. Given how other teams play-action is fooling me this past weekend, there is clearly room for improvement. Add in the need for the Bears to run better, and I see this as important.

Another thing I think Jay could do better is to simply take what the opposing defense gives him more often. There was at least one game in which this is exactly what was done (vs. Panthers). As an observer, it seems that Jay likes to "funnel in" on one receiver. Whether this is Jay not going through his reads, or just not trusting players to catch the ball, I have no way of telling. It does however sometimes result in leaving players wide open in a position to get a first down getting overlooked in favor of whomever Jay happens to be focused on.

These strike me as 2 things that Jay could improve at, that would make the team better, even with the same players on the field.

There are likely other things that I have not noticed. I also believe that the O-line could well have a comparable impact on the team as these two things I mentioned. However, this thread is (or at least should be) confined to things Cutler can, should, or needs to do.

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My son and I had that same discussion while we watched the solid play-action this past weekend. That is a great weapon to have if you execute it well. The other thing we were talking about, is how effectively teams use receiving TE's. Having rock-solid TE play (receiving) is a HUGE weapon to have. Instead of taking sacks or tossing ints, THOSE teams turn those situations into positive yardage plays. You can take apart a defense with surgical precision - even if B.Marsh is blanketed with coverage.

Having a solid play-action option, along with solid TE play would make Cutler a MUCH more effective QB.