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Opps, I see BB posted an article(Friday) with my info above.. There's good NFL stuff in this section!!

I find it humorous that most if not all of the people who defend the trade were the same ones who didn't want to draft Ryan in the first place. Had the Falcons given up the same deal the Bears did to get Cutler last year, the same people would be having a hissy fit. The Bears could have moved up a few places in the draft with their first and a third, and drafted Sanchez...thus saving the first rounder next year. Cutler's has a bad head for a QB...mark it down.

But I didn't include the following players as well that I think most people would agree are good picks, but just may not be elite or near elite players:

S Donte Whitner
S Michael Griffin
S Antrel Rolle
CB Dunta Robinson
CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie
CB Leon Hall
CB Aaron Ross
CB Chris Gamble
CB Marlin Jackson
DE Will Smith
DE Luis Castillo
DE Mathias Kiwanuka
DT Amobi Okoye
DT Brodrick Bunkley
DT Mike Patterson
OT Branden Albert
OT D'Brickashaw Ferguson
OT Jake LOng
OT Ryan Clady
OT Jammal Brown
OT Jeff Otah
OT Vernon Carey
OG Davin Joseph
OG Ben Grubbs
OG Logan Mankins
LB AJ Hawk
LB Ernie Sims
LB Jerod Mayo
LB Chad Greenway
LB DJ Williams
RB Darren McFadden
RB Ronnie Brown
RB Marshawn Lynch
RB Jonathan Stewart
RB Steven Jackson
RB DeAngelo Williams
RB Joseph Addai
TE Heath Miller
TE DustiN Keller
TE Vernon Davis
WR Braylon Edwards
WR Roy Williams
WR Lee Evans
WR Santonio Holmes
WR Anthony Gonzalez

Which still discounts players like:

OT Sam Baker
OC Nick Mangold
S Brandon Meriweather
DE Gaines Adams
WR Dwayne Bowe
QB Brady Quinn
LB Lawrence Timmons

etc. that many people are right there on the cusp of being really good.


So I think you could say that an elite or near-elite player gets drafted every 7 or so picks. So throw in those other 45 or 50 other guys, and you could say that you get a return on your investment, every 2-2.5 picks.

So in all likelihood, by giving up that 2nd #1, you are losing a quality player.

Did the Bears upgrade the QB position? Yes. Is it the most important position? Yes. Are the Bears probably a playoff team with Cutler at the helm? Yes. But IMO, they are not a Super Bowl unless Cutler plays like Manning or Brady. Because he doesn't have the team around him that is a very good team. They are good, but nothing special. But I don't think they offset the price. They essentially gave up 4 starters for 1 starter.

And IMO, as the Bears try to improve their team and make it a true SB contender, they will need those 4 starters. They could get hot, and make a run and I could be sitting here 9 months from now, looking pretty silly.

IMO, if you champion this move, then I think you're probably A) Overrated how good a QB that Cutler is. B) You underrate the value of what they just gave up in the draft.

I mean this would be like giving up Chauncey Davis, our 2 #1s, our #3 to Houston for Mario Williams. And while Williams is arguably the top DE in the league, a much more known commodity than any of the rookies we could get and more likely to contribute right away than any rookie we acquire, if the Falcons were really about upgrading the DE spot, don't you think it would be a smarter move to "just" give up their #1, #2, and #3 picks this year to move up 10-15 spots for one of the top young DEs, all the while keeping Chauncey Davis and our #1 next year?

I wouldn't be suprised if Orton throws for more yards than Cutler this year... Just watch

Cutler is proven NFL QB. Sanchez is like Ryan this time last year - a successful college QB who has yet to prove he will be an elite player in the NFL.

I would have made the same trade to get Cutler last year, no doubt, especially if the Falcons were in Chicago's draft position - not guaranteed that a QB will be on the board when they pick.

Why do you guys think Denver got 2 firsts for Cutler? It's because *many* NFL teams were bidding to get him. No NFL team has ever traded a 3rd year former 1st round QB coming off a Pro Bowl season. There's a reason for that. You guys think it's because Cutler has some kind of fatal flaw. I prefer to side with the judgement of Mike Shanahan over that of a 33 year old rookie head coach. As Cyril said, time will tell.

As I'm sure you sided with Shanahan on his Jake Plummer and Brian Griese projects as well. Did or do either have the intangibles to be top NFL QBs? No. Cutler only would have completed the trifecta for post-Elway QBs for Shanahan.

Cutler is proven, Sanchez is not. You're absolutely right. Between the two of them, even I'd prefer Cutler. But when you give up what the Bears gave up for Cutler, I would rather have Sanchez.

I'll summarize the reasons why I don't like this trade:

1) This episode with Cutler in Denver is a major red flag IMO. IMO, it's the same level of enabling that teams often do with really talented players that lack "it." Same as it was for Jeff George, Vick, and Terrell Owens.

2) The Bears gave up too much. IMO, they gave up enough over the next 2 years that they aren't going to be able to significantly improve their team in the next 2 drafts. They can still find good players in Rounds 2 thru 4, but I would never have a draft strategy where I'm confident I'm going to be able to build up my team with picks in the 50s. I mean just imagine if the Falcons didn't have a #1 this year or next year, how confident would you be that the Falcons would be able to significantly upgrade their roster over the next 2 years? Probably not confident at all.

All one has to do and look at players drafted between picks #50 and #60 in the past 5 years and see that it's not exactly the caliber of players that you want for "team building":

http://www.pro-football-reference.com/d ... =ANY&type=

And because of this, I think this means the Bears are essentially going to have to win with the team they have now.

Is free agency an option? Yeah, but given the likelihood of the uncapped year next year, Free Agency will be an even bigger No Man's Land in 2010 than it was in 2008 and 2009. And then after 2010, no one really knows what is going to happen to be confident to make set plans as far as free agency goes.

And in looking at the Bears roster, I don't think they have the horses to really be a front-runner for anything in the NFC. Much of their defense is 29 or 30 years old, and I wouldn't be confident that they will all go back to playing like they did 3 or so years ago.

I don't think they have the offensive pieces around Cutler that is going to carry them that far in the playoffs.

3) This move smacks of the Bears believing they are just a QB away from going to the Super Bowl. I disagree. The Vikings maybe were a QB away. And if they had made this trade, I wouldn't be complaining.

Are they an improved team? Yes. Are they better with Cutler than with Orton? Yes. Are they probably the front-runner for the NFC North? Yeah. But have they moved ahead of whichever teams win the NFC East or South? Probably not.

But I think 2 years from now, when their defense is all old and breaking down, I think they'll look back and say those picks we gave up really could've helped out a lot. And that's going to take another 2 or so years, and essentially you would have wasted Cutler's prime in Chicago, all because you didn't have 1st round picks.

McDaniels in over his head?

Perhaps he is. But that doesn't change my opinion about the Cutler trade. I've never been a big supporter on the Josh McDaniels bandwagon. I don't think he really had to flex his muscles all that much in New England. He had Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and Wes Welker that made him a hot coaching commodity. And while he didn't have Brady this past year, it's not like Cassel didn't have 3 years (a.k.a. as the magic number) in his offense.

Generally, you fall into two camps. People that believe Cutler is the truth and therefore anybody that traded him is a complete idiot that has no competence as a leader of me. That's probably the majority as far as the talking heads, experts, and analysts go from what I've seen. And then there's the minority that believe Cutler is no saint in all this and therefore McDaniels isn't absolutely crazy for dealing him.

I fall in the latter.

Obviously, who ends up being "right" will determine what kind of season the Broncos have. Personally, I don't expect much change from last year. A team that has a good (and more balanced) offense and a bad defense probably means the Broncos win between 7-9 games this year.

For me, I concur that the success or failure of the trade depends on them winning this year, or maybe next. I think it's *possible* for them to do so - they still have a good D, and have a rising star for a RB - but it's not a sure thing. I'd even go so far as to suggest that maybe the bears expect their fortunes to fall off if the uncapped year comes to fruition, and this is a last attempt to get into the SB.

The Bronco's? Who knows - maybe McD just wasn't enamored with Culter anywho, and this was a good way to git rid of him? Not sure why all the pundants love Jay so much - he's a good QB, but don't know that he's great. He was one of the things holding that team up last year, but with a new regime, don't know how much of a difference he'd make regardless.

Actually I think the window for evaluating this particular trade will be closer to 10 seasons than 1 season, since that's about how many good seasons Cutler should have left in him. Remember the Falcons didn't get the best of the Favre trade in 1992 just because Chris Miller still had something left and Favre didn't lead the Packers to the SB that year.

That franchise QBs can be prima donnas should come as no surprise. Take a look at Favre for a good example. The point is that a huge part of your job as head coach is to maximize the potential of your franchise QB (if your team is actually lucky enough to have a franchise QB). As long as your franchise QB is not negatively affecting the rest of the team, the coach's job is to deal with any ego issues behind the scenes, keeping the QB happy and productive on the field. McDaniels was I think a bit too young and a bit too arrogant to "get" that this was part of his job responsibility. Instead he clumsily created a problem and then added fuel to the fire until it was burning out of control.

Now we enter year one of the Broncos not having a franchise QB, or even having a prospective QB of the future on their roster. This will affect the team for many years to come. Mike Shanahan didn't exactly leave the cupboard bare when he left - the Broncos were knocking on the playoff door every year with Cutler and were by no means in rebuilding mode. McDaniels has traded that away, essentially betting his coaching career on his ability to turn Kyle Orton into a franchise QB. Good luck with that.

But SteveH, I don't think he needs to turn Orton into a franchise QB to necessarily improve the team. Now, it may be a significant obstacle to prevent the team from winning a championship, but I don't think not having a so-called franchise QB means you can't be successful.

Obviously, it depends on your definition of a franchise QB. IMO, a franchise QB is a guy that you can confidently build your team around for another 10 years. There are only a few of those guys around the league. Probably only a handful: Ryan, the Mannings, Brady, Roethlisberger. McNabb and Favre used to be guys like...10 years ago. I think some teams think they have them in guys like Romo, Rivers, Cutler, Flacco, but I'm not so sure. I think guys like Brees and Palmer are also, but haven't been really treated so in the reecnt past.

But IMO, Kyle Orton can be as good a player as Jay Cutler was a year ago. IMHO, Orton is not a scrub. People portray him as such, but IMO he's not. The Bears were practically a 10-6 team with Orton at the helm, with arguably the worst group of WRs in the NFL.

Now I think you put him on an offense that has a better RB and O-line, and has probably 4 receivers that are better than the Bears best WR, then I think you're going to see him do more than fine in Denver.

As for the prima donna thing, I think Favre is the exception rather than the rule. I think prima donna QBs tend to be more like Jeff George than Brett Favre generally speaking. I think one of the reasons why Favre was so successful when players like Jeff George were not is because he was coached by Holmgren. Same goes for Cutler with Shanahan.

Now, if McDaniels is the questionable decision maker and leader that some believe him to be, then that ultimately won't matter because Orton is not going to blossom in that environment. It remains to be seen if McDaniels will take the hit in the locker room that some former players have predicted and/or his decision to switch to a 3-4 scheme without much 3-4 personnel will work. Right now, I'm not very optimistic about those two things. But I still think despite these issues the team can be around .500 this year.

The 10-year window may apply to the Bears, but I think it's really only a 3 or 4 year window for the Broncos in order to judge this trade from their side. And it may only be a few years as well in which the Bears will have to make a decision about Cutler. His contract expires after the 2011 season. So there's only 3 years in which the Bears have to decide whether Cutler is worth re-signing to a long-term deal. If they do, then that potentially extends to the 10-year window. If not, then the trade was a bad one.

It is funny to go back and read the old threads...lol

Denver 6-0...

And Orton has a QB rating of 100.1, right ahead of (get this)
Brady
Ryan
Flacco
McNabb
Warner
Rivers

It's an interesting development to be sure. Let's check back in another 6 weeks or so, and again at the end of the season

Oh, and Sanchez currently has a QB rating of 56.7, 3rd worst in the league.

I think everybody is waiting for the point in the season where the Broncos stop being the Broncos that they are and start being the Broncos that everyone thought they would be.

They have the Ravens, Colts, and Eagles the rest of the way on the road. And their toughest games at home will be vs. the Chargers, Steelers, and Giants.

But at this point with games vs. the Redskins, 2 vs. the Chiefs, and 1 more vs. the Raiders, even if they lose all of those other games, it looks they will definitely win 10 games this season. But assuming they can sustain their current play and factor in an injury here or there, they should be able to win 11 or 12 games this year.

And... Denver now 6-3, same as San Diego

Well I didn't see the game, but giving up 27 points in a loss to the Redskins doesn't look good on paper.

Don't forget you said you would have done the Cutler deal...see his last game????

It's great reading all the stuff I said before the season about Cutler, lol

Cutler is so overated,

It is funny to go back and read the old threads...

So the Broncos finished 8-8, and Orton's QB rating was 14th best in the NFL.
The Bears finished 7-9, and Cutler's QB rating was 21st (Matt Ryan was 20th).

But most interestingly, since the season ended, the Broncos have traded for 2 QBs:
Brady Quinn and Tim Tebow.

It's been suggested that the Broncos fired Mike Shanahan because he lacked good
judgment when it came to the QB position. As the saying goes, be careful what you
ask for...

The Bears are 9-3. The Broncos are 3-9. And McDaniels has been fired::
http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_16793498

It's hard to be patient in our evaluation of players and trades and so forth, huh? Cutler is a hard guy to figure. He obviously is talented. Maybe all those years of playing for Vanderbilt never taught him how to win consistently? The guy has one heck of an arm.

It was bad drafting that killed this trade, not trading Cutler for Orton.

The original trade was such:

Bears get
Jay Cutler
5th round pick (2009)

Broncos get
Kyle Orton
1st round pick (2009)
3rd round pick (2009)
1st round pick (2010)

Well the 5th round pick in '09 that the Bears got turned into Johnny Knox. The 1st round pick in '09 for the Broncos was Robert Ayers. The 3rd round pick was traded to Pittsburgh and turned out to be Mike Wallace, and the Broncos got Richard Quinn and Seth Olsen for it.

Then 2010 1st rounder was traded to San Fran, who took Anthony Davis. Then the pick they got back from San Fran they traded to Philly who took Brandon Graham. The pick they got from Philly, they traded with New England to get Demaryius Thomas. And all muddled somewhere in those trades, they got a pick that got Eric Decker and sent a pick to New England that got them Aaron Hernandez.

My brain just melted...

Yes. And I think this proves the point I made back at the beginning of this thread, right after the trade happened:

Draft picks are not as valuable as proven players. And the aren't nearly as valuable as franchise QBs.

When you trade away a franchise QB you are trading away your team's stability, and setting yourself up to use future draft picks in an attempt to get another franchise QB. You may not be successful in that attempt, and if you're not, it will set your franchise back several years.

But is Cutler a franchise QB? Frankly, if this trade had just been Cutler for Orton straight up, would you say that the Broncos definitely lost this trade?

Sure, you can point to the Bears record vs. the Broncos. But the Broncos have a Top 10 passing game and Top 20 scoring offense, while the Bears are 19th and 26th respectively in those areas.

My beef with this trade was that Cutler wasn't worth what the Bears gave up. They had a playoff-caliber QB already in Orton, and traded him for a slightly better playoff-caliber QB that had big upside, but was not a proven winner himself, and then gave up a bunch of premium draft picks based upon that belief that Cutler was of the caliber that would make up for that loss in premium talent.

If the Broncos got rid of their stability, I think it came when they dumped Shanahan, not Cutler.

If Shanahan had not beaten Reeves in the SB would he be much dif than Reeves? How many playoff games has he been in or won since Elway left town?