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I say McCown. Here is why:

1. I feel like when Cutler came back last time in the Detroit game, it was too early. It was a case of his machismo and Marc Trestman's naivete causing the perfect **** storm. We ended up losing the game because neither of them wanted to step in and say 'put Josh in'. By the time they finally did that, it was too late. Cutler ended up aggravating his groin injury AND causing a new injury. Let Cutler rest as long as he can.

2. McCown is hot right now. Ride it until it doesn't work any more. There's no reason to throw Cutler in there right away.

At the end of the day, playing McCown with Cutler available is the right thing to do. Let Cutler ease back in and give yourself the best chance to win in the long and short term. If McCown hits a wall, you throw Cutler back in, but McCown gives you the luxury of not hurrying Cutler back.

McCown.

Honestly, while Cutler has talent, he's too inconsistent for my liking.

It's a shame the Bears never put Cutler in a place to succeed before this season.

Cutlers game has never matured . In the little time Josh has been the QB of the bears look at how the offense has matured under him . No pouting or whining they simply play and execute . The offense was too tightly wound around Cutlers mood swings and now that everyone is on the same page in terms of responsibility look at how its flourished .

McCown is not doing any rocket science he simply is doing what good teams expect of there Qbs all the time. The turnover factor has been completely ignored by everyone but it simply cannot be overlooked .

To this team, right now he simply is not worth a top ten qb contract . If he took a team friendly deal I would easily move forward with him as the starter but with the defensive holes no way we can give him that deal and fill them .

So continue to start McCown if he falters in the first half of one of these upcoming games then you can go back to Jay .

I see two things that McCown does better:

1. Distribution of the ball/check downs. I feel like Cutler is always looking for Marshall like he is his woobie. McCown, on the other hand, goes through his progressions quickly and finds the open man.

2. Ball fakes/head fakes. McCown seems much more adept at fooling defenders by looking off his intended receivers. Cutler RARELY does that.

All in all, I just think Cutler is the more PREDICTABLE QB. Defenses would rather face him because they know he has tells and will end up making mistakes. McCown is craftier and less predictable - which is part of the reason why he looks better in this offense than Jay did. It's going to be really sad if Cutler comes back and falters, because the coaching staff is going to have to answer the question: "Why didn't you leave Josh in?".

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McCown makes sense... he's played too well, albeit against terrible pass defenses, to sit.

That said, the optimist in me sees how throwing Cutler in there (assuming he's ready) could potentially be optimal. Before Trestman came here, Cutler's biggest problem was the fact that he trusted his arm more than he trusted any receiver not named Brandon Marshall. Marshall could have three guys draped on him and Cutler would rather try to thread the needle to him than throw it to an open receiver because he didn't trust him... his secondary option was always to hold on to the ball until he was sacked. This is why he would have games with multiple picks, lots of sacks, and a few fumbles.

After watching not only McCown light up defenses with an inferior arm, but seeing big plays made four or five receivers on a consistent basis (and Alshon looking all world)... I don't see how Cutler could come back in with the mentality that he needs to throw laser beams to Marshall all day long for the team to win. If he's still stuck in his old mode, the offseason decision to keep him or not becomes a very easy one. If he picks apart these final three defenses down the stretch though, we make an informed decision the other way. In other words, I know this thread is about the short term, but long term this could be the best move.

Cutler returning derails our chances at making the playoffs. I hope I'm wrong. But McCown looks like he's got good control of our offense, esp. our line which has protected him like I've never seen before. Not to mention, Alshon Jefferey has exploded and put tons of pressure on opposing secondaries. Marshall and Jeffery going forward is super scary if we can continue making them threats on those itty bitty corners & safeties. I'm afraid with Jay, that isn't going to be the case.

What Trestman is doing is admirable. He's committing to Cutler for this season and he wants to build a strong rapport with his perceived franchise quarterback. It all makes total sense. I hope that Jay can live up to that. If not, I hope that Trestman has the Tresticles to tell Phil Emery 'let's move on' after this season. The way McCown - a total journeyman - has come in and picked up this offense like Tom Brady shows that the system is working. If it suddenly implodes, it has to fall on the man with the ball in his hands.

I've heard some in the media calling McCown's achievements fool's gold because it came against terrible pass defenses. I decided to test this.

I went to ESPN and looked at all NFL defenses and ranked them according to opponent passer rating. This way you get a little bit more than a ranking based on pass yards... it factors in interceptions, yards per attempt and other key things that differentiate good qbs from bad ones. Then I looked at how Cutler and McCown each did against these defenses in passer rating and looked at the spread versus the average. This way, if you had a rating of 100 versus a team that other qbs average a 110 against, you'd get a -10. If you had a rating of 80 against a team that only gives up an average of 70, you'd get a +10. In other words, I'm trying to account for the quality of the defense. Here are some notes from this excercise:

1. We only played against one team in the top 10 in opponent passer rating. Cincinatti gives up an average rating of 78.0 which is number 4 in the league (Cutler had a 93.2 against them which was +15.2). The next best team was New Orleans whihc is number 12 giving up a 82.7 rating (Cutler had a 128.1 against them which was +45.4).

2. Overall, Cutler's rating was 7.09 better than the average of what his opponents were giving up. The only caveat is I didn't factor in the Washington game where it was such a small sample size his -92.9 based on 8 attempts would have skewed the whole thing. In my opinion... this is pretty good!

3. Overall, McCown's rating was 17.69 better than the average of what his opponents were giving up. This is outrageously amazing! I wouldn't be surprised if this is the best in the league or at least in the top 3.

And again, the reason why I'm looking at the spread between passer rating and average passer rating for the defensive opponent is to factor in the quality of the defenses. You can't say McCown only does well because he went up against terrible defenses, because he did that much better than other qbs going up against THE SAME defenses.

Its a strange situation. Usually no matter how well a backup plays, I would want to starter to regain his role. I dont feel Cutler has done anything wrong this year. However with all that being said, I would start McCown, and ride the hot hand. If McCown is off we can always go to cutler if need be. I would not mind Cutler getting extra rest.

Its a strange decision, but trestman has made so many strange moves this year I am not surprised.

Badbeats wrote:Its a strange situation. Usually no matter how well a backup plays, I would want to starter to regain his role. I dont feel Cutler has done anything wrong this year. However with all that being said, I would start McCown, and ride the hot hand. If McCown is off we can always go to cutler if need be. I would not mind Cutler getting extra rest.

Its a strange decision, but trestman has made so many strange moves this year I am not surprised.

Agree. If Detroit had one more game on us, that would also be a factor. We'd be enough of a long shot to make the playoffs that getting three more games of Cutler under Trestman to guide the qb decision would be a no-brainer. But Mccown has been that hot and we're that close to taking the division.

I do feel like this is a move for the future too, for what can be a variety of reasons.

Right now, I'm kinda for keeping McCown, drafting a QB early, and letting Cutler go/trading him. If Cutler can really light it up the next three games, I'd reconsider.

Marshall also concerns me. Will he go back to being unstable if Cutler is gone?

I know if Cutler won't have a great game, which any reasonable person wouldn't expect, there will be riots in the streets to put Mccown back in but we have three things to consider

1. This is his first game back from two injuries
2. We're playing a very underrated defense and one of the best corners in the game
3. It's snowing

I do expect him to start playing his best football after this week. This is his first year since his rookie season that he had someone to pay attention to when he's on the bench and someone is playing successfully and he should have learned some things from McCown (if he didn't that would be a red flag to me)

1. Chaning the plays at the line and pre-snap adjustments to the defense
2. Throw the ball away

McCown has obviously played at an all-pro level but he cannot make the plays that cutler would have made to beat teams like the Vikings and Rams. Another thing that has improved was the offensive line. They were above average before cutler got hurt but with McCown they have played at a supreme level and if the can do that with cutler in he should have it pretty easy.

Cutler: 2tds 1ints bears win 27- 17

Well, after watching the Browns game, I now know why I prefer McCown:

1. Pocket mobility. McCown is very active and very quick to move around in the pocket to avoid pressure. Jay has a huge tendency to drop back and sit there. It makes him an easy target and he ends up getting blasted - even if he gets the pass off in time.

2. Cutler cleaned it up in the second half, but again he was favoring Marshall. I also see Cutler staring down his receivers much more (see the Earl Bennett TD - he's staring in that direction the whole time he's dropping back). McCown was much more adept at making the fake.

3. The Cutler's arm argument is ridiculous. As we saw, Cutler was overthrowing everyone. The Jeffery TD was an absolute ill-advised hail mary that Jeffrey just made a hell of a play on. BIG difference in McCown vs. Cutler is that McCown was hitting guys in stride and he was getting the balls to them, not depending AS MUCH on them making crazy acrobatic catches.

I wasn't impressed. Granted, he pulled off the win, but he's got a lot of work to do to show me that he's actually better than McCown. The eye test and numbers say otherwise.

blumeany wrote:Well, after watching the Browns game, I now know why I prefer McCown:

1. Pocket mobility. McCown is very active and very quick to move around in the pocket to avoid pressure. Jay has a huge tendency to drop back and sit there. It makes him an easy target and he ends up getting blasted - even if he gets the pass off in time.

2. Cutler cleaned it up in the second half, but again he was favoring Marshall. I also see Cutler staring down his receivers much more (see the Earl Bennett TD - he's staring in that direction the whole time he's dropping back). McCown was much more adept at making the fake.

3. The Cutler's arm argument is ridiculous. As we saw, Cutler was overthrowing everyone. The Jeffery TD was an absolute ill-advised hail mary that Jeffrey just made a hell of a play on. BIG difference in McCown vs. Cutler is that McCown was hitting guys in stride and he was getting the balls to them, not depending AS MUCH on them making crazy acrobatic catches.

I wasn't impressed. Granted, he pulled off the win, but he's got a lot of work to do to show me that he's actually better than McCown. The eye test and numbers say otherwise.

All good points... I only take exception with one... the Alshon Jeffrey TD pass being ill-advised. It was third and long and Cutler was under a ton of pressure. Throwing even a bad pass to the one yard line is better than throwing it away. If it gets picked, it is the equivalent of a perfect punt... but you also have the possibility of a touchdown. It was actually the smartest thing he could have done in that situation. Whether he was doing that out of savvy or moxie is another story... it could have been accidentally smart.

The good and bad yesterday are obvious:

The Bad:
His accuracy was off in the first half... those two picks were both poorly thrown balls.
He was locked in on Marshall, especially in the first half and not letting the game come to him.
He held on to the ball a bit longer than you'd like.

The Good:
He was VERY clutch on third downs.
He was Mr. 4th Quarter again... no wetting himself under pressure.
When he started to spread the ball around, the entire offense started humming along.

Its funny... I still think the best move since we are still in the playoff hunt would have been to play McCown who out performed other qbs versus the defenses he faced by 17 points to Cutler's 7. However, I wonder if the sentiment would have been different if the three dropped picks by the Cowboys weren't dropped, or if the tipped balls that became picks for Cutler yesterday fell to the ground. As much as I like McCown, I do have to admit he has had a bit of a horseshoe up his arsenal.

It's definitely a game of inches sometimes, but you still have to call an interception an interception and a touchdown a touchdown. It all evens out. Let's see what Cutler does next week. I'm hoping the Lions find a way to lose tonight so that the Bears can be the masters of their own destinies.

Nv

The browns have been giving up about 30 a game over the past month. I'm not sure their defense is playing nearly as well as they were earlier in the season.

While I do give credit to Trestman for trying to build a solid rapport with his supposed franchise QB, I hope he and Emery are realizing that Jay just isn't the answer. He is a bum slayer. On an average week against a questionable team, he does great. Against better teams, in important games, he shrivels up. I know our defense sucks, I know others made mistakes, but I didn't see the performance out of Jay that I expected. To me, a journeyman like McCown has looked heads and tails better than Cutler in this offense - even in defeat. That tells me that the scheme is solid and the talent around Jay is solid. I've been a defender of Jay's for a while now, but I've seen enough with this guy to know that he's not the answer.

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