**WARNING: This article contains opinions.**

With so much focus on players that aren't even on the roster yet, I thought I'd give my take on what we have already.  I wanted to focus on two players who, by most accounts, have a shot to be the best player at their position in the next 5 or 6 years.

First Up: How good is Jay Cutler?

I'll start by saying that everything I read and hear hints at the astronomical talent that talent evaluators throughout the NFL believe that he has.  

But, he's not Tom Brady.  He's not Peyton Manning either.  Yet.

To gauge a young QB, you have to compare them with other QBs, but not QBs that have been in the league for very long.  In fact it's only fair to measure a young QB up to other QBs at the same stage in their careers.

I wanted to take a look at statistics from some current and past greats, but I took the stats from the first season that the Quarterback went into the season as the starter.  So, remember, I took Tom Brady's stats from the year after New England won their first Super Bowl, as Brady came off the bench to replace Bledsoe in the prior season.  The same way, Peyton Manning started right away in his rookie season.  To highlight this, I added and "Age" category.  

When I was finished pulling all of the statistics, I was blown away at what company Jay Cutler was in last year.  His stats weren't just favorable; they were at the top in almost every category.  I didn't pick and choose what stats to keep in either, all of the usual stats are there.

Before you jump into evaluating the numbers, keep in mind that these players played on very different teams.  The 2002 Patriots were defending Super Bowl Champs.  The 1998 Colts were a team in disarray.  The 2007 Broncos were a team that had missed the playoffs the previous season and lacked depth on offense and talent on defense.

What's this mean?  

QB Rating is the NFL's measure of Quarterback competency, but it's not the whole story.  Although it's a story that has Jay Cutler's inaugural starting season rated 0.3 points behind Joe Montana's and 2.4 points better than Tom Brady's.

Yards per attempt can be telling.  You can see that Brady was more like Steve Nash (which he admits), making short throws, resulting in a 6.3 YPA as opposed to Jay Cutler's 7.5, who worked the intermediate zones more than some of the other QB's.  In fact, his 7.5 YPA is the highest on this list.  

Look at the Attempts too.  In 1998 Manning threw 575 passes, in 2002, Brady threw 601.  That, paired with the shorter (and safer) passing attack will always result in more TD's and lots of yards.

How about TD's and Int's.  Well, the "Jay Cutler is the next Brett Favre" crap can stop right here.  They couldn't look more different.  4.6% of Brady's passes that year were TD's.  4.8% of Manning's passes were TD's. 4.3% of Jay Cutler's passes were touchdowns.  Favre ended up with 3.6% TD's.  As far as Int's go, I would go so far as to say that the youngest and more inexperienced QB's throw more Int's.  Seems logical enough.  Didn't it seem like Cutler made less and less "what the hell was that?" throws last year as the season wore on?  Bad throws happened every game, but by the end of the season, it was a lot less frequent than at the beginning.

As far as completion percentage goes, it's no surprise that Elway's was low.  In his first few years, he was very high risk-high reward, but had to be because there weren't many other skill position players making plays on that offense.  Manning was a 21 year old rookie, fresh out of college.  Again, it's not a surprise that the younger players typically have lower percentages that players who where more experienced or had the luxury of watching somebody else start for a while.

Montana, Cutler, and Brady are all "West Coast Offense" QB's.  I don't think it's a shock that their rating is a few notches above the rest as that offense is generally a safer offense to run without a lot of turnovers because of the high percentage passes being made.

So, what I'm really saying is that the Broncos don't have "the next" anybody.  We have Jay Cutler.  We have a huge talent and a playmaker that, at this point in his career, compares VERY favorably with some of the all-time greats.  The Broncos and Mike Shanahan, for all of the dirty words cast in their direction in regards to talent evaluation and draft strategy, have something that less than 5 teams in the NFL have at the MOST IMPORTANT position in the game.

Cutler will only get better and smarter and more patient, and if there's one thing I know Coach Shanahan can do, it's tutor a talented player and help make him a great player.  Look what he did with below average to average talent in the Griese and Plummer years.  I feel like Denver fans should feel lucky.  We might have another star QB already.  Give Shanny his due.

Up Next Week -- Brandon Marshall.