Why Jay Faded: His Prospects for 2009

This more than any reason, made Jay’s individual performance drop as the season passed us by.
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Statistically, Denver had the 2nd best running attack in the NFL in terms of yards per carry. And while some have said that was due to Denver passing more, that advantage held up in in first quarter of games it held up in games decided by a touchdown or less. Despite the injuries at running back Denver continued to have a very potent running attack all season long. Denver was the best team in terms of not getting stuffed and the 11th best team at power running (3rd and less than 3).

What Denver was atrocious at was continuing to run. More than one third of all Denver’s rushes happened in the 1st quarter of ball games. Cutler may have been the victim of the lack of running but all the statistics indicate that it was a failure to call running plays and had nothing to do with the injuries.

If you look deeper though, the problems went beyond running. Turnovers, particularly early in games put him behind the eightball early on.

Although I think there were the other factors that I mentioned, the lack of a consistent running game certainly exacerbated the situation. Hillis gave the offense a solidity that it lacked before and after. I thought he was our most effective running back last year, in that when he was in it helped the offense as a whole more than any other back’s presence.

I don’t know if his early success made him “hot-headed” (I would have said arrogant or overly confident). I think that was already his tendency. And I think he slid from the strain of having to be perfect game after game. What is this, Russell’s third year? Either this year or next you’ll get an idea of how good he’s going to be. It wouldn’t hurt his development if he had better protection and some receivers.

The idea of information processing speed is one I’ve been playing around with for months. I’ve published a couple of MHR articles on it. It occurred to me, while I was lying in bed the other night, that it might help resolve the paradox that Jay seemed to be a clutch player in some respects, yet in other ways failed to rise to the occasion the way I thought a bigtime QB should. I’ve always gravitated towards paradoxes as a researcher, because if you can sharpen a paradox so that the contradiction is inescapable, then resolve it in a way that shows it was only apparent, you reach a deeper understanding. That’s why I look for rather than avoid paradoxes. They’re opportunities to see unsuspected truths.

On the other hand if our offensive line hadn’t been so brilliant it could have been much worse. I was trying to analyze Jay’s contribution, and the effect on it of his attitude and level of development, on its own terms separate from the rest. You can’t have an offense that has only an offensive line, only running backs, only a passer, or only receivers, but you can in principle, via careful analysis, determine what each contributes to the whole. I was interested in Jay’s contribution per se. I think Jay was sacked only 11 times, by the way, mostly because of the brilliance of our line, but his ability to sense the rush and move around in the pocket was a nontrivial factor. The latter is something my analysis could have and perhaps should have considered. The rest is superfluous not because it’s unimportant to the offense and doesn’t effect Jay, but because it doesn’t indicate what Jay brings to the equation (i.e. all else being equal).

You’ve put your finger precisely on what I was trying to do, which was to focus on one particular factor, Jay’s contribution to the offense regardless of other factors, guided by a revealing peculiarity, Jay’s ability to rise to the occasion for particular plays (i.e. third down conversions) but not for particular games (at least not late in the season). I’m hoping Jay does learn from McDaniels. Whether or not he’s going to be coachable in that sense has been one of my main concerns. I hope he realizes that McDaniels can do more than anyone else to help him fulfill his ambitions.

suggests he is good at dealing with players, however unintuitive that might seem given the situation with Cutler. Perhaps in time he will find what works and doesn’t work with Jay in a coaching context, and be as successful a coach for him as he already has been for the players he coached at New England. If Josh can keep him calm and collected that will hopefully help his off-field decisions and may well contribute to his on-field play, but the improvement on his on-field “decisions” per se will be a function of his developmental level, in terms of processing speed, and his willingness to forego unnecessary risks. The latter is where McDaniels’ on-field coaching might have its greatest impact.

With regards to route mistakes that happens on all teams, so any quarterback’s total will be increased by unlucky interceptions due to route mistakes and decreased by the bad throws he gets away with. For the most part I think it’s a wash but also a reason why no one, even if he makes no mistakes, will ever have a no interception season. But it did seem to me that Marshall in particular was especially prone to being in the wrong place at the right time (just like off the field!), leaving no one between the ball and the defender and Cutler with a quantum of additional stress. As for drops Marshall had quite a few, but I remember an article here showing that his drops as a percentage of the times he was targeted wasn’t that excessive. Nonetheless, an elite receiver should be better than merely average in that. I agree that numbness was likely a factor and suspect he’ll do better next year. What was more surprising to me was the fact that he targeted Marshall more than Royal even though he completed a much higher percentage of the passes thrown to the latter. I suspect that had a lot to do with Royal’s very crisp and sudden cuts giving him consistently more separation than Marshall, and that Cutler’s preference for Marshall despite that was a carryover from the previous year. I think Royal will be our best receiver this year, and that he might have been last year. Good call on Bates. I don’t think his play calling was all that great, but I’m sure it appealed to Cutler for obvious reasons:

Bates: Let’s go with a pass on this down.
Cutler: I love you, man!

Your quote block unerringly locates the heart of the article, the core idea that led to its being written in the first place. I had the insight about 18-24 hours before I wrote the article, mulled it over in the interim and organized my thoughts, then sat down and began writing.

I wasn’t specifically thinking that Jay stopped making decisions. It’s your own additional insight that I very much agree with. The notion of sandlot football vs a relentless machine vividly conjures up an image of how and why our offense declined. In suggesting that he stopped thinking and fell back on his natural abilities you highlight the fact that astounding talent can be a curse as well as a blessing. In a recent comment to another article Royal With Cheese argued, “Montana’s greatest skill was in reading multiple receivers with lightning quickness, which was perfect for the West Coast system system he was in.” He erred only in failing to emphasize that this skill is the single most important asset a quarterback can have in any system. It separates great quarterbacks from the pack and enables otherwise untalented quarterbacks to have solid careers. But a relatively weak-armed quarterback is more likely to nurture and perfect this skill because he has no choice. He doesn’t have the natural abilities Cutler can fall back on. But possessing these abilities also makes it more difficult for Cutler to develop this critical part of his skill set. And it is critical, because I think given a choice between an accurate rifle arm and the ability to rapidly process information and instinctively make the right move the latter is more important. Its possession or lack can make or break a quarterback.

I appreciate your emphasis on decision-making and believe we both understand that it need not imply conscious decision-making, like deciding whether or not we can afford to buy a house, but has more to do with how much a quarterback is able to see or sense in the midst of a play and his aversion or lack of aversion to risk. Analyzing the process by which he makes decisions or abandons the effort is critical precisely (as you suggest) because his decisions affect everything the offense does. Hence, “that it is the only thing thing that matters in regard to his development” is congruent with everything I believe and have said. I’m flattered that my IPS influenced your thinking in this matter. That footwork, arm strength, etc. are assets that a good decision-maker can use rather than attributes that can take the place or even rival decision-making is I think putting the emphasis exactly where it belongs.

This may be true. However, the running and defensive problems certainly limited the amount of choices he had, and also dramatically increased the pressure he was under. While the ideal analysis of a player should contain as few variables as possible, the running game and defense created an climate in which it felt like Cutler was leading a comeback or game-changing drive every series in the second half for most of the games in the later part of the season. This is like the team performance situations mentioned at the start of the article, but magnified and placed all on Cutler. This exposes some of his weaknesses, but doesn’t neccisarily show how well he will perform in more manigable circumstatnces, like when he’s asked to win games himself only 1 out of 2 games instead of for the majority of a season. Great post. IF Jay will let Josh coach him, I think that he will make huge strides in ’09 to realizing that elite player that he has in him.

That’s a critical aspect of the game Shanahan never managed to get right, witness our dominating Buffalo in our 2007 opener yet barely eking out a win.

…for me is: Will Cutler allow McDaniels to coach him?

It feels to me like Cutler is at a fork in his career path. (what do i know, but) As I see it he can step up to his role as QB listen to his coach and vastly improve his game with better discipline, or he can bounce around the leauge for 5-10 years and never quite achive his potential. They might never be great friends, but I think that Jay and Josh could have a very profitable working relationship.

As far as the NPD issue, this may or may not be his personality type, but the lives of star atheletes can certainly encourage these types of reactions (especially if he is getting bad advice from certain parties). Lets hope that his attitude is caused more by external forces than his inherent psych. makeup. My view of the misunderstanding between Cutler and McDaniels is that it is part of the growning pains associated with the restructuring of team that has spent so long under one coaches system. That is not to say anything against Shanahan, just that it is hard to change directions after going in one way for so long.

do you actually know that Cutler is full of self-admiration or are you basing that on media protrails of him? While I tend to support McDaniels in this whole fiasco, there has also been a lot of mis-information in the Cutler bashing as well. Consider this:

Cutler recently finished his best season as a pro, being selcted for the Pro Bowl, after struggling with mysterious problems which were later diagnosed as diabetes. It has been reported that he had great relationships with Shanahan and Bates hence he had every reason to feel very confident about his future as a Bronco.

Then Shanahan is fired, Bates is let go, and he finds out that he has been involved in trade discussions. That would be unsettling to anyone. When asked by the media he said he was very upset by it and he has expressed doubts that the organization is being straightforward with him. He has asked for reassurances and does not feel he has been given them. Finally he has then requested a trade.

Now I don’t think either side has handled this situation the best they could, but I don’t see how anyone can diagnose NPD based on the snipets of information we have. While Jay’s actions aren’t the most mature way to deal with this situation there’s certainly nothing unusual about any of his responses. What colors our interpretation are the ways the MSM have recycled this story over and over coupled with their speculations and distortions.

The reality; if McD thinks as HC that he is going to have the luxury of working one on one with his QB he is sadly mistaken. That will be up to Mike McCoy. Will Cutler be coachable? If he wants to start and wants to win (which I’m sure he does) then what other choice does he have.

And there is no issue of reprogramming. There’s no evidence that Cutler cannot process the information fast enough. The issue is whether he is going through his read and progressions or just winging it. There’s actually evidence, based on statements by Shanahan that Cutler was not just winging it, but that he was actually encouraged to do just that.

i just got a date with natalie portman good feeling or a i need a bigger belt good feeling?