Everything is a function of the entire offense to a degree, but the QB has the ball in his hands to start every play. If you have a RB who keeps putting it on the ground, he's a liability, same for a QB who throws it all around the field. One of the reasons our D sucked the last five games is that Favre gave away about 12 posessons to put them back out there--often after they just made a big stop and often with a short field.
Ricky Williams and Ronnie Brown give Penny enough to help him move the chains but yeah, ultimately, it always comes down to Penny's arm. He did look a little better last season than he has in years, but they're still gonna crowd the box and bring the heat on him, and that's when he's always been most vulnerable.
When he had WRs to throw to he did very well. Camarillo got hurt late in the year, in the Baltimore game they had only 3 WRs dressed and one got hurt. It's easy to blame him and say he should throw down the field, but to who?
I saw this on rotoworld, thought it was funny: The Browns were not considered serious contenders for Jay Cutler because Cutler reportedly "wanted no part of" Eric Mangini. The Browns' concern that Cutler wouldn't report to Cleveland shut down a potential deal. We can't imagine why the Browns would be concerned. Cutler seems like an affable fellow, always willing to roll with the punches.
http://www.prosportsdaily.com/comments/jets-never-really-had-a-chance-at-jay-cutler-219684.html According to this the Jets contacted the Broncos before he was officially on the trade block and NEVER received a call back. Jay Cutler was NEVER going to be a Jet no matter what.
In recent years, I'm not sure I ever wanted Penny to throw it down the field, I wouldn't care if Randy Moss himself was down there, his balls floated so badly. Pennington looks better now than he was, but he's still a ballhawks dream. Penny's best game its the dink and dunk. No one does it better... maybe in the entire history of the NFL even. But that's not gonna win him a championship, IMO, because that style greatly hampers the ability to move the ball consistently. Taking 48 snaps to move the ball 80 yards is not very productive and sooner or later, all those snaps, all that crowding of the box and all those jumped routes takes its toll.
I said this the other day. Is Cutler a "Mangini Guy?" Maybe Cutler aleady knows the answer to that... he certainly doesn't seem like the kind of guy who'd sit around listening to all of Mangini's psychobabble about "the three phases" and whatnot. And I can just imagine if Mangini called Jay 10 times in 10 days and got no reply.... it ain't gonna work. Mangini knew it and Jay Cutler knew it.
In recent years he was coming off two surgeries to his throwing shoulder, unprecedented for a QB to ever play after that. Last year was the first time since the initial shoulder injury that he looked like he was throwing the ball well downfield. He's never had a laser arm but if he was as limited as people make him out to be he wouldn't have had nearly the success he's had in the league. He'd been getting by with the dinks and dunks all that time without having his full arm strength.
I totally agree on the Favre thing... Favre f*cked over our D big time by making them get out on the field so often. It's no wonder we didn't have a freakin' revolt on our hands, like Rhodes getting in Favre's face on the sidelines and saying something like, "Dude, quit turning the f*cking ball over, okay? WTF are you doing?" But this all comes back to the TEAM thing. Everybody wants to believe Cutler was our answer. With him we go to the SB and without him we don't. It's not that way and it doesn't necessarily hold true that Cutler is our answer. The entire team is our answer, and with a reasonably careful, fairly accurate, turnover-eliminating, ball-controlling QB, we CAN win a SB.
Agreed. Given who our new coach is, probably smart not to break the bank for a QB who is still largely unproven.
Well, yeah, I'm still thinking Cutler is a far cry more proven than what we have, so for that reason, I was for the Cutler deal if it was reasonable. It's pretty obvious now that no reasonable offer we could have made (including the Bears' offer) would have been acceptable to the Broncos. Because we didn't have what they wanted (and are in the AFC to boot), our price would have had to have been Herschel Walker-like and ridiculously over the top. No way. But I'm saying we can still be contenders. And maybe, just maybe, we are better off for NOT having made this deal. Suppose Ratty emerges as a very good (not perfect, but very good) QB? If Ryan and Tannenbaum continue to build this team in the right direction... the entire team... somebody like a Ratty will be enough to take us to the promised land.
The biggest bummer to me about the Cutler trade is that it ends the exciting rivalry between Jay Cutler and Philip Rivers. That was fun to watch.
I would love for Philip Rivers and Drew Brees to play inside the same divison, lol, that would be fun to watch but your right...The West was exciting with young QB's like Cutler, Rivers and Russell
So, everything you read says that Denver's first choice was Quinn. They almost had a seal with the Browns but Cutler wanted no part of playing for Mangini. You have to winder if Denver doesn't now take one of those picks and Orton and flip him to Cleveland for the guy they wanted to begin with.